French, second half 18th Century

This intriguing bust relates to a number of models of French origin. With her bared breast and turned neck, she recalls the iconic Diane de Versailles in the Louvre (inv. no. Ma589), which arrived in France in 1556. The bust is characterised by the hair which is braided and bound in cloth in an arrangement which is close to the ancient Greek sakkos. This conception is similar to that seen in the 17th-century bronze Bust of Sappho which was formerly in the French royal collection and is today in the Louvre (inv. no. MR 3353). The present bust is typical of the 18th-century French taste for female allegorical or mythological heads of which François Girardon and Robert Le Lorrain were the greatest exponents. See also the bronze Bust of a young woman was sold in these rooms on 5 July 2016, lot 135, which similarly relates to French models but was likely made in Italy (given the facture). The surface treatment of the present bronze with seemingly unfinished chasing on the shoulders is similar to that seen on late 18th-century bronze casts of models by the likes of Louis-Simon Boizot (see the Joseph Vernet bust in the V&A, inv. no. 26-1959) and Charles Joseph Ricourt (see the Balthazar-Georges Sage bust in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Mines). A dating to the second half of the 18th-century for the present bust is thus likely.

A drawing by William Stuckley, titled Sappho, made in 1722, represents a bust that parallels the present model, drawn after an example in Wilton House. Another example, carved from marble, is in the Louvre Museum, Paris (inv. no. CH M 241).

RELATED LITERATURE

M. Baker, ‘”For Pembroke Statues, Dirty Gods and Coins”: The Collecting, Display, and Uses of Sculpture at Wilton House’, Symposium Papers XLVII: Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe, Vol. 70, 2008, pp. 378-395