Featured Help on possible 18th century lead statue TYIA

I really know nothing about this. Approx 17" x 12" and extremely heavy. I paid for an evaluation online to try to figure out or get pointed in the right direction but I am still not much further than when I started. I would have thought it was bronze but they said it is likely lead based on the images provided and meant to adorn a fountain. They said it is French and 18th century or fashioned after an 18th century piece. They also remarked that it deserves further research in order to make an attribution. I used to have the email of someone that was very knowledgeable on these types of things but have since lost it. I like the value they placed on this but would really like to know more about it before I try to sell it. TY for any information anyone can help with

 

I found this name maybe you could look into works based on his Cupid.
https://www.wga.hu/html_m/f/falconet/cupid.html
But that’s just a wild google search. I’m sure someone will have a more knowledgable idea.

 

Thank you for taking the time to help. Interesting!

 

I can't quite tell what they're doing. Dumping a container of water? Doesn't look like they're holding a jug. Imagery like that is associated with river gods. It's certainly in 18th C taste, but that's not necessarily an indication of when it was made.

Lead was/is used for garden statuary (hardly a hard and fast rule) but that doesn't look like it has spent any time outdoors.

 

One is quieting the other with her finger over her mouth There is an amphora or jug between them.

 

Removed, as they are not exact.

 

Quite correct. Aged male figures pouring water from a wide mouthed jar are allegorical figures for rivers, such as the Tiber. Female figures, usually with more delicate jars, represent springs or smaller water courses.

I don't see the finger as over the lips in a shushing motion; more raised in an admonitory way.

Have made myself dizzy looking back & forth between them. They seem to derive from the same basic image, but are not the same, are they?

I see one figure as female, the other male. In this one it is the male tipping the jar & the female with the cautionary finger. On the eBay one the roles are reversed?

Also, I do not see this feature (wing?) on the eBay one:



Differences in the hair are the easiest for me to compare. This is the eBay figure I see as female:



From this angle she looks like an adult woman, wearing her hair in a way that is characteristic of Venus. Gauntlet's figures are both immature looking, putti.

 

Have made myself dizzy looking back & forth between them. They seem to derive from the same basic image, but are not the same, are they?


You are right. Close but not the same. I removed so as not to cause confusion.

 

They are so similar, using the clues provided by the 2 of them for possible search terms may be useful.

Find if I search for putti or cherubs + some word for the vessel, I just get such vessels with figures on them. Have more luck using verbs like pouring.

 

I think the male is based on Falconete’s Cupid.

 

Which derives from depictions of Harpocrates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpocrates

Putti engaged in various activities have been such popular artistic subjects for so many centuries... See the ivory work of
François Duquesnoy & van Opstal. This design would have been appropriate for a fountain.

 

Could the girl be Psyche?
I have seen them together, but not in this pose.

 

Researching the one under consideration, found this old Sotheby's listing. Anyone else disturbed by Sight about to swat a fly & Touch in agony from a snake bite?

 

Between the 2 versions, there are echoes of Cupid & Psyche, Venus & Cupid, & putti as followers of Bacchus/Dionysus. (Could see it as one scolding the other for spilling the wine.)

 

You can have this one for your garden.

 

These were done by Falconete.
: FIGURES OF CUPID AND PSYCHE 'L'AMOUR MENACANT' AND 'LA NYMPHE FALCONET'

 

Yes, all these pairings would do.

 

There's a similarity of feeling in this fountain group:

 

If the bit on the back I flagged in post #7 as possibly a wing is actually meant to be my other idea, an animal skin (& looks more hairy than feathered to me) then the allusion is to Bacchus & his retinue.

 

The Falconet certainly seems to have been widely reproduced. The quotation on the base of this one in the Met is amusing.

When endeavoring to identify the artist behind this ivory plaque (here making, I think, its third appearance in a thread) by using stylistic clues, & poring through all the ivory putti I could find, I saw that how the hair is done is distinctive. Second image is a painting, but there would have been a real ivory behind it. Same composition; hair says different artists.



Falconet gave his figure lush locks. Modeler of the metal piece was less generous.