Lot Essay
The figure of Aesop in the pair offered here relates very closely to a life-size lead figure of the same figure invented by Pierre Legros I, and now in the Labyrinthe in Versailles. Further comparisons can also be made with a series of bronze statuettes, often of different philosophers but modelled in the same style, such as the two figures sold in Christie's, London, 22 Nov. 2005, lot 271. The variations in these groups suggests that they were all formerly part of a decorative series of philosophers executed after Legros' original models.