Wednesday 6 July 2016

A Marble Statue of the Reclining Diana attrib. Laurent Delvaux.

 

A Marble Statue of the Reclining Diana
attrib. to the workshop of Laurent Delvaux (1696 - 1778),
and Peter Scheemakers (1691 - 1781).

Scheemakers and Delvaux were in partnership in London from 1718 - 28.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20.5 by 72.2 by 31.6cm.
 
This piece was sold at The Sotheby's London sale, Defining Taste, Works Selected by Danny Katz.
Lot 86 -12 November 2013.
 
Provenance, Christies London, Lot 46 14 December 1999.
 
Photographs Courtesy Sotheby's.
 
A Diana was in Delvaux’s and Scheemakers’s sale, April 16 1728, lot 9. 
 
‘A sleeping Figure, by Mr Delvo’, Delvaux’s and Scheemakers’s Sale, 16 April 1728, lot 53; is untraced but it is suggested that the figure is Ariadne attrib. to Delvaux at the Yale Centre for British Art is this statuette.
 
I find it difficult to reconcile the obvious erotic nature of the Diana above with the more chaste Yale Ariadne and would suggest that they are not by the same sculptor.
 
Perhaps the pair to it was the Cleopatra at Delvaux’s and Scheemakers’s Sale, 16 April 1728, lot 6. 
 
Another Ariadne which is attributed to Delvaux is at the Huntington Library and Museum, California.
 
______________________________________ 
 
 
 The Statuette above appears to be the same one that was offered at Sotheby's but it is mounted in a marble base It was offered for sale by Sotheby's 9 July 2009.
 
 
 
Sir Francis Dashwood, 11the Baron Le Despenser. FRS, (1708 - 71).
by William Hogarth.
 
Depicted as Francis of Assisi
Showing the statue of the sleeping Diana. nb the legs are open in the portrait rather than crossed as in the statue but otherwise the pose is identical.
 
Lord Sandwich appearing in the Halo - Dashwood is reading from Elgantiae Latini Sermonis an Erotic Novel supposedly translated by Nicholas Chorier
Oil on Canvas.
 
For an amusing website about Dashwood, Paul Whitehead and the Hellfire Club, The Monks of Medmenham, etc at West Wycombe see -
 
 
 
 
  Ariadne signed Delvaux.
The Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Conn.
25 x 62 cms
 
Sold by Sotheby's London 1969.
 
 
 Cleopatra.

signed Scheemakers f.

71.1 x 30.5 cms.

The Yale Centre for British Art.
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Ariadne.

Attrib. to Delvaux.

Sold Sotheby's 24 Jan 2002.
 
 
 
 
 
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Huntington Library Cleopatra signed Delvaux..

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Antonio Susini (Florence 1558–1624 Florence)
Sleeping Venus 
After a model by Giambologna of ca. 1584, cast ca. 1600–1615
Bronze
8 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. (21 x 31 cm)

A classical Roman marble known as the Sleeping Ariadne inspired the pose of this Venus. Her slumbering, outflung abandon is Giambologna’s invention. The smooth precision of the figure, the angular drapery, and the detailed engraving of the eyes, fingernails, and embroidery are hallmarks of the bronzes that were cast and tooled by Giambologna’s principal assistant, the goldsmith Antonio Susini. Susini conveys the sensuous effects of flesh pressed against pillows and drapery folded by the motions of sleep. Emblazoned on Venus’s couch is a winged skull — a reminder that death is the companion of sleep and that sensual life is fleeting.
 
Reclining Venus
Probably commissioned by François Girardon (Troyes 1628–1715 Paris)  1699 – 1709
Bronze cast after a terracotta model attributed to Thibault Poissant (1605–1668)
Original carved gilt-wood base attributed to Gilles-Marie Oppenord (1672–1742)
9 3/8 x 9 1/4 x 16 3/4 in. (24 x 23.5 x 42.5 cm)
 
 

 
Both of these bronzes from the Collection of Mr and Mrs J Tomilson Hill.
Frick Collection.

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