ATTRIBUTED TO RÉNE FRÉMIN | ALLEGORY OF AMERICA

Patrice Bellanger, Paris 

Alicia Adamczak, The Sparkling Soul of Terracotta (edited by S. Castri), Florence, 2014, pp. 32 - 37

On basis of stylistic comparisons, Alicia Adamczak has linked the present fine terracotta figure to René Frémin’s work for the gardens of the grounds of the Royal Palace of La Granja of San Ildefonso. Frémin was responsible for the decorations from 1721 and created a number of similar-looking statues, showing a comparable gestures and a square base.

As a French sculptor born in Paris, Frémin attended the workshops of François Girardon and Antoine Coysevox before receiving the first prize from the Académie Royale de peinture et sculpture in 1691 with a relief featuring Lot and his Daughters. He then moved to Rome where he took part in the extensive work on the Chapel of Saint Ignatius in the Church of the Gesù. Upon his return to Paris in the early 1700s, he became Sculptor to the King and worked on the most important projects that marked the end of Louis XIV’s reign, such as the Royal Chapel at the Palaces of Versailles or the Church of Les Invalides in Paris.

In 1721, the sculptor was nominated as Sculptor to the King of Spain by the Royal Academy. Along with a number of other French artists, he was entrusted with the creation of the statues and fountains of the Royal Palace at La Granja. At La Granja de San Ildefonso, Frémin’s figure of Diana, along with a series of other goddesses, reigned over the gardens, celebrating femininity. The sculptor also designed figures of the four Continents: America, Asia, Europe and Africa. The marble statue of America is personified by the features of a woman with a high headdress of feathers, armed with a quiver and resting her foot foot upon a crocodile. Significant stylistic similarities to the terracotta model presented here and the marble America, are evident as are the similarities between the terracotta and Fremin’s marble figure of Ismene, created for the Andromeda flowerbed, showing a young musician playing a flute with a windswept shirt and feathered headdress.

The present sculpture, with its flowing drapery, creating the illusion of movement, illustrates the artist’s debt to the work of Coysevox and the Baroque sculpture of Rome. 

Related Literature

F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th Centuries - The reign of Louis XIV, vol. I, Oxford-London, 1977, p. 330