Attributed to Jean Thierry

Sylvia Wildenstein

This elegant bronze depicting Flora and Cupid relates to similar mythological bronze groups made by French sculptors during the first decades of the 18th century. Robert Le Lorrain, Philippe Bertrand and Corneille van Clève were amongst the most famous sculptors to create such small scale bronzes which owe a debt to the Florentine bronze casting tradition. With their mythological subjects - often goddesses or heroes in repose - complex compositions and high quality casts, they directly recall bronzes by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi and Giovanni Battista Foggini. This genre of bronze is exemplified by the Éducation de l’Amour par Mercury en préssence de Vénus, circa 1720, in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. no. H. CK-96), which shares compositional similarities to the present bronze. Note also works ascribed to van  Clève, such as his Diana and Endymion and Bacchus and Ariane, of which casts exhibit in the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco (inv. nos. 1931. 153 and 1931.154). Many of the mythological groups described in 18th-century inventories and sale catalogues, however, are yet to be identified, such as those by François Ladatte recorded in the vente Morel, 3 May 1786 (lot 449): ‘Deux beaux Bronzes très bien réparés ; l'un représente Vénus désarmant l'Amour; l'autre offre Junon dans son char sur des nuages, accompagnée de Jupiter sous la figure d'un aigle’ [Two beautiful bronzes very well executed; the first representing Cupid disarmed by Venus; the other presenting Juno in her chariot upon clouds, accompanied by Jupiter represented by an eagle].

The present bronze finds its closest parallels in the oeuvre of the French sculptor Jean Thierry, who created sculptural groups for the gardens of Versailles and Marly, and later worked alongside René Frémin on sculptures for the gardens of La Granja at San Ildefonso, near to Segovia, for Philip V of Spain. Thierry’s elegant, feminine style is exemplified by his morceau de réception for the Académie royale, Léda et la Cygne, which is now in the Louvre (inv. no. MR 2100). The playful movement strongly recalls the present figure of Flora. Compare also the Quatre Nymphes assises sur des rochers in the gardens of Versailles, created in collaboration with Philippe Bertrand, François Barrois and Jean Hardy (circa 1706; inv. no. 1850.9889). Note also the Fontaine à l’Éventail, which may possibly have been created entirely by Thierry or in collaboration with Frémin and Jacques Bousseau (circa 1720-1735). The present bronze finds a further comparison in a lost design by Thierry for La Granja, representing Diana and Endymion, which is known from an engraving by Thomassin (Souchal, op. cit., p. 328, no. 119). The above comparisons justify a tentative attribution of the Flora and Cupid to Jean Thierry, who may have modelled the composition between his admission to the Académie in September 1717 and his departure for La Granja in January 1721.

We would like to thank Mrs Caroline Ruiz, PhD student in Art History and member of the EHEHI Casa de Valázquez (2021-2023), who has been working since 2018 toward a monograph on Rene Frémin, for sharing her observations on this bronze with us.

RELATED LITERATURE

M. Knoedler, The French bronze 1500 to 1800, exh. cat., M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1968, no. 55;

F. Souchal, French sculptors of the 17th and 18th century. The reign of Louis XIV, London, 1987, pp. 304-328;

R. Wenley, French Bronzes in the Wallace Collection, London, 2002, pp. 68-69;

G. Bresc-Bautier, G. Scherf, Bronzes français de la Renaissance au Siècle des lumières, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2008, pp. 398-399, 408-415, 417-419