Dreweatts Donnington Priory Salerooms
Lot 27
A patinated bronze model of a Bacchante, in the manner of Claude Michel, called Clodion, third quarter 19th century, portrayed nude, with flambeau torch held aloft, her weight on her right foot, the figure supported by a tree stump behind, on a waisted, circular variegated red and white marble socle, 53cm high. This model is more usually cast with a bunch of grapes in the raised left hand and a cup in the lowered right, after Clodion’s original conception, also being one part of an opposing pair. In this example the attributes of debauchery have been removed and replaced, possibly reflecting the more temperate nature of the later 19th century buying public. Examples with the original bacchic attributes are held in the Wallace Collection, numbered 215 and 216. See Wallace Collection Catalogues, Sculpture, 1931, pp 78-79 and p49