Lot Essay
This delicately modelled vase is related to Clodion's relief of the Triumph of Galatea, executed in the late 1770s as part of the decoration of the Hôtel de Bouret de Vézelay (CLodion, loc. cit.). The main body of the vase has been cast (although the details of the laurel and acanthus leaves have been worked after coming out of the mould) and the relief has then been separately modelled and applied, a technique also used on the relief recently sold by Christie's in New York (28 January, 1998, lot 216 (sold for $200,000)). It appears to be one of a pair of vases included as lot 207 in the sale of the effects of M. Eugène Tondu in 1865, which are described as 'Deux jolis petits vases de forme Médicis, en terre cuite, par Clodion. Leurs panses sont ornées de bas reliefs représentants le Triomphe de Vénus, des tritons, des naïades et des dauphins. Les culots sont formés de feuilles d'acanthe et les piédouches sont garnis de tores de lauriers. - Hauteur, 0m,22'. It may have been bought at this time by a member of the Rothschild family, indicated by the red inventory number, although this has not yet been confirmed. Although this vase has obviously become a work of art in its own right, it probably originated as a model for a large marble version.