Attributed to Robert Le Lorrain, circa 1710 - 1715 | Attribué à Robert Le Lorrain, vers 1710 - 1715

Possibly François de Troy (1645-1730), Director of the Académie Royale de peinture et sculpture;

possibly Jean-Baptiste-François Nourri (1697-1784) whose posthumous auction sale on 24 February - 16 March 1785 included no. 90 'Une tête de Junon d'un grand caractère, par le même [Robert Le Lorrain] sur pied douche. Hauteur 18 pouces [45.7cm.]', sold for 102 lt to Langlier;

possibly Jacques Langlier (or Lenglier) (1730-1814).

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Peut-être François de Troy (1645-1730), Directeur de l'Académie Royale de peinture et sculpture ;

Peut-être Jean-Baptiste-François Nourri (1697-1784) dont la vente aux enchères posthume, du 24 février au 16 mars 1785, incluait lot 90 'Une tête de Junon d'un grand caractère, par le même [Robert Le Lorrain] sur pied douche. Hauteur 18 pouces [45,7 cm]', vendue pour 102 lt à Langlier ;

Peut-être Jacques Langlier (or Lenglier) (1730-1814).

This beautifully carved mythological bust can be confidently attributed to Robert Le Lorrain, a leading pupil of François Girardon, and sculptor to Louis XV and Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Rohan-Soubise, Cardinal Prince Bishop of Strasbourg.

Michele Beaulieu has established that as many as sixty allegorical and mythological busts by Le Lorrain are recorded in 18th-century sale catalogues. The genre appears to have been a favourite of Le Lorrain, who avoided commissions for portrait busts, to the extent that his major private patron, the Cardinal Prince Bishop of Strasbourg had to ask Guillaume Coustou to sculpt his likeness in marble. Beaulieu records that the principal themes of Le Lorrain's busts are the 'gods of Olympus: Juno, Venus, Bacchus, the Continents and the Seasons, fauns ... and bacchantes' (op. cit., p. 47). Beaulieu's assessment is underscored by a catalogue of Le Lorrain's oeuvre prepared by Abbe Louis Gougenot (1719-1767) which is kept in the archives of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Gougenot lists twenty female busts in various Parisian collections, including two marble busts made for M. de la Motte, trésorier of France.

Given Le Lorrain's prolific output, it is remarkable that only a handful of allegorical busts in marble have been securely attributed to the sculptor. These include a Bust of Ceres and a Bust of a Nymph in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. nos. S33 and S34; both busts are given to Le Lorrain by Beaulieu); a Bust of a Young Girl in the Musée Cognac-Jay, Paris (inv. no. J 232); a Bust of a Bacchante sold Sotheby's Monaco on 3 December 1994, lot 37; and a Bust of Flora in a private collection. Each of these busts shares the same set of characteristics as the present marble: the deep, narrow, truncation cut off just above the breasts; the dream-like expression (sometimes with lips parted); the engraved eyes; slender nose; and, above all, the beautifully carved tresses of hair which weave in and out of different head ornaments (wheat sheaths, diadems, flowers).

The present bust probably depicts Juno, given the presence of the crown in her hair. Other possible subjects are Thetis and Venus, but, given the numerous references to busts of Juno by Le Lorrain in 18th-century catalogues, the identification to Jupiter's spouse seems probable. Regardless of subject identification, the present bust exhibits superb carving, particularly in the hair which is seemingly imbued with a nervous energy and falls sensuously on the proper right shoulder in a single strand which stands apart from the neck, in three dimensions.

Tantalisingly, the present Bust of a Goddess appears to have been depicted in a family self-portrait by the court painter François de Troy: Le peintre François de Troy et sa famille, circa 1715, Sceaux, Domaine departmental (inv. no. 2020.1.1). De Troy presents his family within an interior backdrop which includes two marble busts mounted on pilasters with coloured marble socles. The bust on the left is very close to the present bust, similarly facing to the proper left and sharing the same deep truncation and pointed hair arrangement or headdress. The pendant bust, which one would expect to be Jupiter (if the present bust does indeed represent Juno), can be tentatively identified as Ganymede; Le Lorrain was responsible for a Ganymede which was paired with a Flora in the collection of Augustin Blondel de Gagny (1695-1776). The posthumous sale catalogue of Jean-Baptiste-François Nourri, Conseiller au Grand Conseil, of 1785, lists two busts of Juno by Le Lorrain, one of which (the larger) may be the present bust (this bust was subsequently acquired by the dealer Jacques Langlier).

Aside from the comparison with the known allegorical busts given to Le Lorrain, the present bust finds parallels within the sculptor's wider oeuvre. Compare, for example, the dream-like expression, facial type, and hair with Le Lorrain's bronze Bust of Thetis, circa 1710-1720, in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz (inv. no. 904); his marble Galatea, 1701, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (inv. no. 1952.5.105); and the bronze Andromeda in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. RF 3399). Finally, but most convincingly, the scrolling headdress or crown is near-identical (but in reverse with pinnacle scrolling outwards) to that seen on his keystone with Asia made for the courtyard of the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg (Beaulieu, op. cit., pl. XLVIII, fig. 86); the two are so distinctive and similar that it seems likely that they were made by the same artist.

In carving the present Bust of a Goddess and the busts discussed above, it seems likely that Le Lorrain, who studied in the Eternal City (and was offered the position of Director of the Villa Medici), was influenced by Bernini's Anima Beata, 1619, in the Spanish Embassy in Rome. Each of the busts seems to evoke the sense of reverie seen in Bernini's marble. A final influence can be found in Giovanni Bandini's Architecture from the Tomb of Michelangelo in Santa Croce in Florence; note the similar headdress or coronet with scrolling terminals. This connection is given credence by Le Lorrain's use of another Florentine model, the Tomb of Baccio Bandinelli, executed by Bandinelli and his son Clemente, in SS. Annunziata in Florence, for the Tomb of Girardon in the church of Sainte-Marguerite in Paris.

RELATED LITERATURE

M. Beaulieu, Robert Le Lorrain (1666-1743), 1982;

F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries: The Reign of Louis XIV, Oxford, 1987.

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