A pair of French bronzes of The River God Tiber and The River God Nile, 19th century, after the Antique 19th century marqueterie Boulle bases attributed to Pierre-François Henri Levasseur, dit Levasseur le Jeune

Wildenstein Collection, New York

Collection Hubert de Givenchy, Paris

Christie's, Paris, 'La Galerie de Girardon. Evocation by Hubert de Givenchy', exhibition 11 to 26 sept 2012 (private sale)

(Boulle bases) Christie's New York, Property from the Estate of Mollie Wilmot, 21 May 2003, lot 25

Galerie J. Kugel, Paris

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Collection Wildenstein, New York

Collection Hubert de Givenchy, Paris

Christie's, Paris, exposition 'La Galerie de Girardon. Evocation par Hubert de Givenchy', du 11 au 26 septembre 2012 (vente privée)

(socles) Christie's New York, Collection Mollie Wilmot, 21 mai 2003, lot 25

Galerie J. Kugel, Paris

'La Galerie de Girardon. Evocation by Hubert de Givenchy', Christie's, Paris, exhibition 11-26 September 2012, pp. 48-55, no IV

J. Warren, Beauty and Power. Renaissance and Baroque bronzes from the Peter Marino collection, London, Wallace collection, 2010, pp. 166-172, cat. no 15

L. Seelig, Studien zu Martin van den Bogaert, gen. Desjardins (1637-1694), PhD Dissertation, Munich, 1980, pp. 567-569, note 5

Related Literature

R. Wenley, French Bronzes in the Wallace collection, London, 2002, pp. 38-41.

G. Bresc-Bautier, Sculptures des jardins du Louvre, du Carrousel et des Tuileries II, Paris, 1986, pp. 49-50 and pp. 355-356

F. Haskell, N. Penny, Pour l’Amour de l’Antique, la statuaire gréco-romaine et le goût européen 1500-1900, London, 1981, pp. 294-295 and pp. 340-341

F. Souchal, ‘La Collection du Sculpteur Girardon d’après son Inventaire après décès’, in Gazette des Beaux Arts, 82 (1973), pp. 1-98

This fine pair of bronzes represents the most important rivers of the ancient world, the Tiber and the Nile, personified by reclining bearded men, leaning against cornucopias filled with fruit and ears of corn. Wearing a crown of rushes, the Nile is identified by the sphinx, evoking Egypt, while the Tiber, holding an oar, is accompanied by a wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, symbolizing Rome’s foundation.

These bronzes of River Gods are reductions of the famous monumental antique marbles excavated in Rome in the early sixteenth century. Both were found on the site of the sanctuary dedicated to Isis and Serapis (on the Campus Martius), between the churches of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and Santo Stefano del Cacco in Rome. The Nile, mentioned for the first time in 1523, is a Roman copy of the first century CE after a Hellenic model, while the Tiber, found in 1512, was carved in the time of Hadrian (117–138) as a pendant to the Nile.

These much admired marbles were included among the Roman antiquities ceded to Napoleon in 1803, to be displayed in the Salle des Fleuves at the Musée Central des Arts in Paris. The Nile was returned to Rome and placed in the Vatican museums (inv. no 22838) after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, but the Tiber was given to Louis XVIII by Pope Pius VII and joined the collections of the Musée du Louvre (M.A. 593).

The marbles were a source of great fascination, and life size copies were made immediately after their discovery, especially in France. François I commissioned a bronze copy of the Tiber from Francesco Primaticcio (1504–1570), cast by Vignole in about 1540–1543, for his collections at Fontainebleau (destroyed in 1792). In 1680, Louis XIV asked the Superintendent of the King’s Buildings for life-size marble statues of the River Gods for the gardens at Marly. While at the Académie de France in Rome, Pierre Bourdict (1684–1711) sculpted the Tiber between 1685 and 1690, while Lorenzo Ottoni made a life-size marble of the Nile between 1687 and 1692: this was a faithful copy from the Antique with sixteen putti clambering over the god – an allusion to the height of sixteen cubits reached by the Nile as it flooded in the rainy season. The marbles by Bourdict and Ottoni can still be seen in the Jardin des Tuileries (cf. G. Bresc-Bautier, op. cit.).

In France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was a real passion for bronze reductions after the Antique, prized for the quality of their casting.

François Girardon had two pairs of River Gods in his collection, one large and one small, which can be seen in Chevalier ‘s 1709 engraving (pl. VI). The small bronzes (width c. 45 cm; 17¾ in.) are described as made after the Antique by Jacques Buirette (1631–1699) while the larger pair (width c. 74 cm; 29 1/8 in.) is noted as modelled by Martin Carlier (1653–1704). The engraving shows the larger pair of River Gods on either side of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, described as ‘Bronze figure copied in Rome after the Antique by Carlier, resting on an Ebony pedestal with panels of green Egyptian marble’ (‘… figure de Bronze copié à Rome d’après l’Antique par Carlier posée sur un pied d’Estail d’Ebeine dont les panneaux sont de marbre vert d’Egipthe’) (nos 12 and 13).

In his detailed study, J. Warren discovered examples by other sculptors: a pair estimated at 300 livres and another ‘ready for casting’ (‘prête à être fondue’) appear in the inventory drawn up after the death of Martin Desjardins (1637–1694). Corneille van Clève (1645–1732) also had a pair of River Gods in his collection, estimated at 400 livres. Warren mentions other French sculptors of the seventeenth century as possible authors of this model, who owned bronzes of the River Gods in their collections: Claude Bertin (d. 1705), David Bourdelle (1651–1706), Pierre Lepautre (1659/66–1744) and Jacques Prou (1655–1706).

The pair of River Gods in the Wallace collection (inv. nos S179 and S180), for which Warren suggested a possible attribution to Corneille van Clève, as well as the bronzes in Peter Marino’s collection (J. Warren, op. cit.), both in a large format, are today considered the finest surviving versions. Examples in a small size have been identified in Dresden, owned by Augustus the Strong from 1715, in the Huntington collection, San Marino, in the Hearst collection and in the British Royal Collection.

From the former Wildenstein collection, and particularly enriched by their sumptuous pedestals attributed to Pierre-François Henri Levasseur, called Levasseur le Jeune (former Mollie Wilmot collection), the present bronzes may be compared to a very similar pair in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no 29.100.148), on long-term loan to the Elms, New Port.