Attributed to Pierre-Etienne Monnot (1657-1733) Italo-French, Rome, circa 1700 | Oval Relief with a Female Head

This beautiful relief with an idealised female head can be associated with similar reliefs in the Vatican Museums and a further example sold in these rooms on 3 July 2018, lot 117. The latter oval is the subject of an expertise by Charles Avery in which he attributes the group to the late Baroque French-born Roman sculptor Pierre-Etienne Monnot. Monnot moved to Rome around 1687, establishing a successful career as a sculptor in the Eternal City. Foremost among his distinguished international clientele was Karl, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1654-1730), who entrusted him with the lavish decoration of the Marmorbad in Kassel. Another important patron of the sculptor was the Englishman John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter (circa 1648-1700), for whom Monnot produced an elaborate tomb. Monnot was clearly valued by his patrons not only for his architectural and decorative designs, but for his considerable talent in executing busts; both Hesse-Kassel and Exeter commissioned portrait busts from the sculptor. According to Avery, the present composition finds a strong comparison in a Bust of Flora, signed MONNOT FEC ROMA, which is similarly garlanded and has a wistful expression. As discussed above, the present relief is particularly close to a series of reliefs with Bacchantes surmounting columns in the Octagonal Room of the Vatican Museums, which are likewise wreathed, have shallow truncations, and fill most of the field of relief, and are also associated with Monnot by Avery.

RELATED LITERATURE

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française sous le règne de Louis XIV, Paris, 1906, vol. 2, pp. 381-384; R. Enggass, Early Eighteenth-Century Sculpture in Rome, University Park and London, 1976, pp. 77-88