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Lot Essay
The bronze statuette offered here is loosely based on the classical marble Faun with the Panther in the Villa Albani, Rome, and the model upon which it is based has traditionally been attributed to the French mannerist sculptor Barthélemy Prieur. This attribution is based upon stylistic similarities between the present model and other documented works of art such as his bronze Funerary Spirits dating from circa 1585 and housed in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (R. Wenley, French Bronzes in the Wallace Collection, London, 2002, figs. 23a and b). Close comparison to the two Louvre figures has also allowed a whole body of small statuettes depicting youths, acrobats, gentlemen and peasants - each sharing similar stylistic traits, and rich patinations to be attributed to Prieur and his workshop. The Bacchus offered here with its rich chocolate brown patination and highly mannered anatomy can be included in this group.
Although the model is known to exist in a number of casts, the present bronze is among the finest known and, aside from a few minor variations in the modelling, is arguably as fine as the example in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from the Robert H. Smith collection (A. Radcliffe and N. Penny, Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500-1650, Washington, 2004, no. 41).
Although the model is known to exist in a number of casts, the present bronze is among the finest known and, aside from a few minor variations in the modelling, is arguably as fine as the example in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from the Robert H. Smith collection (A. Radcliffe and N. Penny, Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500-1650, Washington, 2004, no. 41).