Attributed to Félix LECOMTE (1737-1817) Bacchanalian... Lot 45

Attributed to Félix LECOMTE (1737-1817) Bacchanalian procession and sacrifice scene Pair of terracotta vases Mounts in gilt bronze and white marble Height 37,5 cm Related works : - Félix Lecomte, Le Triomphe de Terpsichore, terra cotta bas-relief, inscribed lower left "F. LECOMTE 1770 ", H. 33 x L. 104 x W. 4,3 cm, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, villa Éphrussi de Rothschild, musée Île-de-France, inv. 2194 ; - Joseph-Marie Vien, Suite de Vases composée dans le goût de l'Antique, 1760, Publisher Chez Basan et Poignant, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale d'histoire de l'art, collections Jacques Doucet Estampes ; - Jacques-François Saly, Recueil de vases inventés et gravés à l'eau-forte, 1747, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Department of Prints and Photography. Related literature: - James-David Draper (ed.), Guilhem Scherf (ed.), The Creative Spirit: from Pigalle to Canova: European Terracottas: 1740-1840, cat. exp. Paris, Musée du Louvre, 19 September 2003-5 January 2004, New York, The Metropolitan museum of art, 28 January-28 April 2004, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 12 May-29 August 2004, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 2003, pp.157-159 ; - Anne L. Poulet, Guilhem Scherf, Clodion 1738-1814, cat. exp. Paris, Musée du Louvre, 17 March-29 June 1992, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1992. Around 1750, under the influence of the great patron and academician, the Count of Caylus (1692-1765), and following the widespread distribution of the vase designs by Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) and Jacques-François Saly (1717-1776), interest in this type of object grew among most of the sculptors at the forefront of the neoclassical artistic scene. Clodion, Moitte, or Boizot tried their hand at this exercise at the crossroads of sculpture and art object. The themes chosen to decorate these vases are regularly inspired by the reliefs adorning ancient sarcophagi and more particularly by an iconography linked to the cult of the Roman goddess Vesta and her cohort of Bacchic processions and sacrificial scenes. These two remarkable terracotta vases, typical of this antiquisite production which was all the rage in the cabinets of amateurs at the time, are most closely related to the hand of Félix Lecomte. Lecomte was a sculptor who drew a lot. We find his style borrowed from drawing, linear, refined and graphic in his works in bas-reliefs. Our vases are carefully sculpted on backgrounds regularly streaked with parallel lines from which stand out, by contrast, the characters with smooth skin. These different characters are only suggested in a very slight projection highlighted by delicate incisions deeply drawn in the clay. This particular technique can be found in Lecomte's work, particularly in his charming terracotta model of the Triumph of Terpsichore. The bodies of the characters who follow one another in this joyful procession have the same elongated type, the same straight-nosed profiles and the same meticulous technique in the treatment of the drapery. It is worth noting the very good quality of the original gilded bronze mounts, finely chiseled with acanthus leaves and grapes. Expert : Cabinet Lacroix et Jeannest