"Amalthea with Jupiter's goat", a gilt bronze group Continental, late 19th century, after the model by Pierre Julien

stamped with the Société des Bronzes de Bruxelles seal

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'Ecole Française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1911, vol. II, pp. 14-15

Overall in good original condition with the usual wear to the patina in places especially to high reliefs of the composition and such consistent with handling, touching, and cleaning. Light scratches consistent with age.
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This composition of Amalthea with Jupiter’s Goat was originally created as the central element in the sculptural decoration of Marie Antoinette's dairy, or Laiterie, at Rambouillet. The château and its park were acquired by Louis XVI in 1783 for the queen. Pierre Julien received the royal commission in 1785 and the marble was exhibited at the Salon of 1791. Known as one of Julien’s finest works, Amalthea was the only sculpture in the round made for the Laiterie. Julien also executed a number of low reliefs with subjects related to the mythological and bucolic program there. Julien's sculptures for Rambouillet were dispersed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The statue of Amalthea entered the Musée du Louvre in 1829, and in 1953 it was returned to its original location at the Château (inv. no. CC 230)

The present cast is a version of the Rambouillet Amalthea. A replica, now lost, of the original was executed by Julien in the summer of 1804 for his patron, Jean Marie Lafont de Juys, an active promoter of the arts in his native city of Lyon. The terracotta bozzetto for the Amalthea is also in the Louvre (inv. no. RF 2309) and a later full-size terracotta of the sculpture is preserved in the Henry Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California.

In Greek mythology, Amalthea was a deity variously described as a she-goat and a nymph. According to one legend, she was the daughter of the Cretan king Melisseus. She raised the infant Zeus on the milk of a goat, while her sister provided him with honey. Another story describes her as a nymph possessed of a miraculous horn, the proverbial cornucopia, which was given to her by Zeus with the promise that she would always find in it whatever she wished.