PAST EXHIBITION

Complete Checklist

  • Terracotta sculpture in relief depicting a seated woman presenting a baby with wings to two other women, one of which seated and the other standing. Another baby with wings stands in the background and a third is in trapped in a cage in the foreground.

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    The Cupid Seller (La marchande d’amours), c. 1765–70
    Terracotta
    8 3/4 x 10 7/8 in. (22.2 x 27.6 cm)
    Anonymous Loan

    Grasping the wings of an eagerly gesturing cupid, a seated vendor proffers love to a buyer flanked by an attendant. Clodion’s highly classicized composition, created during his formative years at the French Academy in Rome, presents a charming interpretation of a renowned ancient wall painting discovered near Pompeii and known through prints. Raised modeling emphasizes the female figures’ profiles and drapery, and delicate incising captures the illusion of their gracefully contoured limbs receding into space.

  • Marble sculpture in relief of 3 women and 3 babies with wings. One is in trapped in a cage.

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    The Cupid Seller (La marchande d’amours), c. 1765–70
    Marble
    10 7/8 x 11 3/4 in. (27.6 x 29.8 cm)
    Private Collection

    Clodion uses the purity and permanence of marble to portray with calm dignity this playful scene of the vending of love. The relief underscores the appeal of the Cupid Seller subject in the late eighteenth century since it may be a commission after the earlier terracotta by Clodion at left. Celebrated for his mastery of modeling in clay, the artist here demonstrates his equally refined technique in marble, as seen in his sensitive articulation of the folds of the female figures’ garments and of the minute feathers of the cupids’ wings.

  • Terracotta statue of a standing goddess wrapped in drapery and holding an urn

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Vestal, c. 1767–68
    Terracotta
    23 7/8 in. (60.6 cm)
    Private Collection

    A life-size marble statue in Rome served as the inspiration for this terracotta, which exemplifies the impact of classical antiquity on Houdon’s early work in Italy. He depicts a priestess of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth whose followers (called vestals) adopted vows of chastity and guarded a perpetual flame in her temple. Featuring the blank eyes and serene expression of a classical sculpture, Houdon’s figure holds an urn of the sacred fire with draped hands that attest to her modesty. A student of anatomy who observed nature as closely as he observed the antique, Houdon activates his figure through the slight sway of her stance, the gentle turn of her head, and the grace of her form emerging beneath the pleats of her garment.

  • Pair of terracotta vases with classical mythological figures and decorative elements

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    Pair of Vases with Bacchic Subjects, c. 1770–75
    Terracotta
    10 5/8 in. (27 cm)
    Private Collection

     

    Clodion evokes the visual language of classical triumphal processions in these relief vases modeled during or shortly after his time in Italy. Reclining in mirroring poses on chariots pulled by teams of putti are Silenus, the drunken companion of Bacchus, and a female Satyr, whose furry legs identify her as half goat. The small-scale works emulate the form of the monumental marble Medici Vase, an esteemed antiquity in Rome. Clodion’s depictions of Bacchic revelry in warm-hued terracotta invigorate the classical vase format and subject for the delight of learned eighteenth-century audiences.

  • Terracotta statuette of three standing female figures linking hands around a central column

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    Three Graces, early 1770s
    Terracotta
    20 1/2 in. (52.1 cm)
    Private Collection

    This early work intended to support a marble basin exemplifies Clodion’s imaginative approach to the Greek and Roman precedents he studied in Italy. He interprets the Three Graces — guardians of life’s pleasures — as caryatids (female figures serving as architectural pillars). The artist embellishes upon the traditional single-figure caryatid by encircling the Graces, who link hands in accordance with custom, around a central column. Subtle variations in the figures’ poses, coiffures, and classical costumes enliven the rhythm of the composition, lending it a contemporary, naturalistic spirit.

  • Marble bust of a young woman looking down with hair pulled back and tied with a ribbon

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Young Lise in the Guise of Innocence, 1775
    Marble
    18 1/8 in. (46 cm) 
    Private Collection

    On view April–June 2014

    According to popular anecdote, a provincial innocent named Mademoiselle Lise arrived in Paris in 1774 under the naive assumption that husbands, as well as weddings, would be offered to local maidens during a municipal celebration. In this tour-de-force carving, Houdon contrasts the matte texture of Lise’s bountiful hair, bound beneath a wide ribbon, with the smooth, polished surface of her unblemished features, endowing his imaginary portrayal with palpable reality. By adopting the idiom of a classical bust, Houdon transcends the specificity of his subject to personify timeless, youthful innocence.

  • Marble bust of a woman draped in a garment with long, curly hair.

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Madame His, 1775
    Marble
    31 1/2 x 17 x 12 1/2 in. (80 x 43.2 x 31.8 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw, 2007

    This portrait bust of Marie Anne de Vastre, wife of German banker Pierre-François His, highlights Houdon’s gift for rendering lifelike features and textures in marble. The tumbling curls of Madame His’s coiffure echo the undulations of her mantle and inwardly folding chemise, while her upright bearing, alert gaze, and parted lips — animated to suggest that she is on the verge of speaking — highlight her intelligence. By uniting close observation from life with the classical bust format, Houdon endows his subject with the superior rationality that Enlightenment audiences admired in ancient sculpture.

  • Life-size terracotta sculpture of the nude goddess Diana holding a bow and balancing on one foot

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Diana the Huntress, 1776–95
    Terracotta
    75 1/2 in. (191.8 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Purchased 1939

     

    Houdon’s exploration of the figure in motion finds full expression in this life-size portrayal of Diana, the goddess of the hunt, who bounds forward in pursuit of her quarry with a bow and (lost) arrow. The open stance of the goddess, who balances on one foot in a display of technical ingenuity, expands the limits of the terracotta medium. In his unorthodox portrayal of the virgin goddess’s nudity, Houdon combines classical subject matter with the knowledge of the human body that he gained while working from life in Rome.

  • Marble bust of a woman glancing over one shoulder with long, curly and leaves adorning her garment

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Comtesse du Cayla, 1777
    Marble
    21 1/4 in. (54 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Henry Clay Frick Bequest

    Houdon portrays the Countess of Cayla (née Élisabeth-Susanne de Jaucourt) as a bacchante, or female follower of Bacchus. By depicting her as she turns to run or dance, with windswept hair and a sidelong gaze, the artist explores the possibilities of the portrait bust format to convey motion. The grape leaves adorning the countess’s breast emphasize her Bacchic role, perhaps an allusion to her husband’s family name, Baschi. The contrast between this work and the more restrained marble busts by Houdon exhibited nearby conveys the artist’s fluid approach to portraiture and the classical tradition, which he adapted to suit his distinct aims and the individual qualities of his sitters.

  • Marble bust of a man wearing a wig, robe, and bow-tied sash

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    Armand-Thomas Hue, Marquis de Miromesnil, 1777
    Marble
    25 1/2 in. (64.8 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Purchased 1935

    Adopting the dignity of a Roman imperial bust, Houdon portrays the marquis in his august role as minister of justice of France, which he held for thirteen years beginning in 1774. The highly polished surface of his official costume, including the buttoned cassock, bow-tied sash, and voluminous robe, is distinct from the delicately textured carving that defines the sitter’s wig and frames his fleeting expression. Houdon conveys the marquis’s intellect through the tensed features around his mouth and the sideways glance of his eyes, which glint with uncanny realism as small reserves of marble highlight the darker recesses of his pupils.

  • Marble sculpture in high-relief of a dead songbird hanging upside down, pinned by its legs.

    Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
    The Dead Thrush (La Grive Morte), 1782
    Marble
    8 7/8 x 5 7/8 x 2 5/8 in. (22.5 x 14.9 x 6.5 cm)
    The Horvitz Collection, Boston

    Houdon applies his powers of lifelike representation to this portrayal of a lifeless songbird hanging by its feet from a nail with a delicate ribbon. The artist amplifies the trompe l’oeil conceit of the work through the drooping wing of the thrush, whose stiff feathers, differentiated from the down of its body, extend beyond the frame in a masterful expression of high-relief carving. The work suggests Houdon’s engagement with the legend of Zeuxis, the ancient Greek artist whose convincing depiction of grapes attracted hungry birds, as well as the sculptor’s ambition to rival the illusionistic possibilities of painting.

  • Spherical glass and gilt-brass clock supported by a three nude females

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    Jean-Baptiste Lepaute (1727–1802)
    The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock, 1788
    Terracotta, gilt brass, glass
    40 3/4 in. (103.5 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Purchased through the Bequest of Winthrop Kellogg Edey

    On view in the Portico Gallery July–October 2014
    On view in the Fragonard Room beginning October 2014

    Clodion’s base for a glass-enclosed clock by the renowned horologist Lepaute provides a daring variation on the theme of animated caryatids (female figures providing architectural support) that he explored nearly two decades earlier in his Three Graces. With outstretched limbs, the nymphs flout their role as buttresses for the pillar they surround. The circular momentum of their joyous dance, suggested by their billowing draperies, proceeds in unison with the rhythm of the clock’s pendulum and the horizontal rotation of its dial. Together, Clodion’s figures and Lepaute’s timepiece epitomize the beauty, modernity, and classicism that defined the art of the Enlightenment.

  • Sculpture of a nude male and female figure holding one another with nude babies with wings

    Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814)
    Zephyrus and Flora, 1799
    Terracotta
    20 3/4 in. (52.7 cm)
    The Frick Collection, New York; Henry Clay Frick Bequest

    Clodion demonstrates his mastery of the small-scale terracotta statuette in this joyful representation of the god of the west wind, a herald of spring, tenderly embracing the goddess of flowers as he crowns her with a wreath of roses. Identifying attributes — from Zephyrus’s breeze-blown drapery to the putti scattering flowers near Flora — enhance the spiraling energy of the composition. Although Clodion draws his subject from the antique, the figure group possesses the weightless elegance characteristic of his late style.

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