A rare Vincennes group of Venus and Adonis, circa 1750-52
A rare Vincennes group of Venus and Adonis, circa 1750-52. Estimate 12,000 — 18,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.
L'Heure du Berger, in the white, modelled as a reclining female figure wearing loose drapery, with a male youth sitting above her left side, upon a rockwork base, incised letter B to inside of tree trunk, 21.7cm., 8 1/2 in. high
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE TIM CLARKE
Provenance: Christie's Geneva, 7th May 1979, lot 15
Bibliography: Comparative Literature
Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, La Porcelaine de Vincennes, 1991, p. 169, no. 167
Notes: The model is probably inspired by the engraving Le repos de Diane by Jean Pelletier (1736-?) after the painting by François Boucher. For the engraving see Pierrette Jean-Richard, L'oeuvre grave de Francois Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, 1978, pp. 350-351, no. 1454.
The factory's inventory of 1st October 1752 lists seventeen 'Groupes heures du Berger', priced at 40 livres each. The first recorded sale of this model was on the 25th January 1753 to a M. De Crillon at a cost of 120 livres, (quoted by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, op. cit., 1991, p. 169 where the authors suggest this higher price may be because the group was mounted).
Le repos de Diane by Jean Pelletier (1736-?) after the painting by François Boucher
Other examples of this rare form are in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres (published by Tamara Préaud and Antoine d'Albis, op. cit., 1991, p. 169, no. 167); the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, ob. no. EC.3-1944, previously sold at Sotheby's London, The property of a Lady, 14th July 1944, lot 28; a gilt bronze mounted example is in the V&A museum, London, mus. no. C.356-1909, gifted by Joseph Henry Fitzhenry.
Sotheby's, Collections, Londres, 27 oct. 2015, 10:30 AM