Possibly by the Workshop of Simon-Louis Boquet (Paris 1743 - 1833), bearing the date 1722

Galerie Perrin, Paris;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 9 March 2007.

It is tempting to identify this marble as the seated figure of Ceres by Simon-Louis Boquet exhibited at the Salon of 1793 as no. 157. Both the fine quality of the carving and the facial type relate directly to a pair of signed marble figures by Boquet sold at Sotheby’s Monaco 18 June 1994, lot 65. However, the present figure of Ceres bears a date twenty-one years before the artist’s birth. Furthermore, the Salon catalogue describes Boquet’s Ceres as approximately 20cm. larger than the present marble.

It is possible that the present sculpture is a workshop reduction of Boquet’s original marble, made for a private client and erroneously dated.

RELATED LITERATURE

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l’École Française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris 1910, pp. 73-74;

J.-R. Gaborit, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. Sculptures du Musée du Louvre, Paris 1985.