PAULI or PAOLI (Malines, 1625-1690), ROMBOUTS... Lot 57

PAULI or PAOLI (Malines, 1625-1690), ROMBOUTS PAUWELS called Venus caressing Love Terracotta group. On the top of the terrace, a signature Lemoine reported. Height. 42 Length. 58 cm. (Small accidents and restorations). Provenance: André and Monelle Vogt collection in Bussang (Vosges), before 1920; by descent. Venus touching love in terracotta by Paoli from the former Vogt collection. Related works: - Rombouts Pauwels, Venus caressing Love, bronze, 30.6 x 42 x 17.7 cm, Munich, in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, n°inv. 63/11. - Rombouts Pauwels, Venus Caressing Love and Venus Teaching Love the Art of Archery, pair of terracottas, 35 x 49 x 28.5 cm and 35 x 51 x 28.5 cm, one signed, in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, no. 987.8.1. Related literature: - "La sculpture au siècle de Rubens dans les Pays bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège", cat. exp. held at the Musée d'art ancien, Brussels, 15 July - 2 October 1977. Alain Jacobs, "Fascination baroque, la sculpture flamande dans les collections françaises", cat. exp. held at the Museum of Flanders, Cassel from 15 October 2011 to 29 January 2012, Co-publishing Museum of Flanders / Somogy, 2011, pp.118 -221. Born in Mechelen, Rombouts Pauwels took the pseudonym of Pauli around 1643 on his return from Rome, where he is said to have frequented Nicolas Poussin and François Duquesnoy. At the age of eleven he was enrolled as an apprentice at the Guild of Saint Luke in Mechelen and, on his return from Italy at the turn of the 17th century, he obtained his master's degree in that city, then in Ghent. Although his work is rare and poorly documented, Pauwels is nevertheless one of the greatest names in Flemish sculpture of the Rubens century, along with François and Jérôme Duquesnoy, Lucas Faydherbe and Artus Quellin. His most famous and admired work is the mausoleum of the bishop of Ghent, Carolus Maes, in the cathedral of Saint Bavo in Ghent. In addition to his sacred work, he also produced several groups on the themes of Childhood, Love and Motherhood, all of which are imbued with humanism, morality and erudition, all of which are strong markers of the great Baroque art that developed in the Netherlands in the middle of the "Great Century". A bronze version (30.6 x 42 x 17.7 cm, in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, no. 63/11) and a terracotta version with variations (35 x 49 x 28.5 cm, signed, in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, no. 987.8.1) are known from our important group "Venus Caressing Love". On the other hand, an anonymous gilt bronze group (37.5 x 50 x 22 cm) of the same model, certainly attributable to Pauli, went on public sale at Thierry de Maigret in Paris on September 22, 2018. Our ample and beautiful terracotta is unpublished and adds to this corpus. Undoubtedly by Pauwels, the group is modelled in a red ochre clay that can be found in the workshops of Malinois or Antwerp. It bears a curious signature "Lemoine", probably incised in the 19th century by a hand that was as unscrupulous as it was knowledgeable about the style of the 18th-century French portraitist. This Venus and Love are the direct heirs of the Flemish "Virgins with Child" of the Baroque period, as the tender attitudes of the two protagonists attest. Venus' slender-fingered hand kneading Love's hip with maternal affection and her gaze plunged into the wide-open eyes of a Cupid who is being cradled and caressed refer to the opposition between sacred and profane love, a subject dear to Flanders in the 17th century. The iconography of this group has long been debated. While the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille presents (in pair with a "Venus teaching the art of archery to Love", by the same artist) its version under the title of "Venus caressing Love", the bronze version in Munich was formerly attributed to Artus Quellin and titled "Charity". We note Pauli's mastery, breadth and taste in the specific treatment of the drapery and his application in the rendering of the cover and the rich headboard, absent from the Lille version but present in the Munich bronze. Here Pauli renews the theme of the goddess's maternal love for her son Cupid and announces, without renouncing the classicism and elegance of the 17th century, the more worldly and aesthetic art of the 18th century that was to come.