A FRENCH TERRACOTTA GROUP OF LEDA AND THE SWAN, Attributed to the Workshop of Claude Michel, called 'Clodion' (1738-1814), Late 18th Century

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Description

height 16 1/8 in.
(41cm)

signed .CLODION. on reverse of the tree trunk, the nymph standing beside the trunk amidst bullrushes, bending toward the bird with her right arm raised.

Literature

RELATED LITERATURE
Galerie Jean Charpentier, sale catalogue, June 9th 1936, lot 88, pl. x.
A. L. Poulet and G. Sherf, Clodion 1738-1814, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, 1992, no.44, p.231., notes.

Catalogue Note

The Clodion exhibition catalogue (op.cit.) records, in the notes on page 231, that a terracotta group of Leda and the swan was included in a number of sales from as early as 1803 and that a signed terracotta version appeared on the Paris art market in 1936, see Charpentier (op.cit.). The group is directly inspired by the Leda included in one of the reliefs executed by Clodion for Hôtel de Besenval now in the Louvre and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue (op.cit., p.233), note in particular the upturned hand. Also compare a group sold Sotheby's London, November 9, 1999, lot 64.

According to the Greek myth, Leda, Queen of Sparta, was loved by Jupiter who metamorphosised into a swan in order to lay with her. The result of the union was two eggs from which hatched Castor and Pollux and Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.