(Lyons, 1640-1720, Paris)

Relief portrait of a classical male

French, circa 1700

Marble, in an original grey marble frame

35 cm. / 13 ¾ ins high (the relief) / 50 cm. high x 41 cm. wide incl. frame

PROVENANCE:

Christie's, King Street, 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe, London, 10 December 2009

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This fine marble relief exemplifies the sophisticated style of sculpture prevalent in France during the reign of Louis XIV, combining the dramatic energy of Bernini’s Roman Baroque with the cool classicism of the emerging Neoclassical style. It finds close parallels both in style and execution with the oeuvre of Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720), whose workshop executed numerous portrait reliefs for royal and aristocratic patrons.

The present relief depicts the head of a young man in profile, the shoulders truncated just below the neck. He is portrayed in the classical manner with bare shoulders, idealised facial features and long locks of hair, which are heavily drilled and wind-blown in the typical Baroque manner. There are no inscriptions to identify the artist or subject, but, given the idealism of the face and lack of contemporary clothing, the relief may be a portrait of a young aristocratic Frenchman in the guise of an ancient god or hero, such as Apollo or Adonis.

The rendering of the hair and idealised style may be compared with several portraits of Louis de France, Le Grand Dauphin (eldest son of Louis XIV), which are associated with Antoine Coysevox and his workshop or circle. See, for example, a relief of Le Grand Dauphin illustrated in Maral and Carpentier-Vanhaverbeke, op. cit., p. 319, which is signed by Coysevox and dated 1683. The simple outline of the face of the Dauphin, the classical austerity and the manner of carving of the hair - with a relatively flat section at the top of the head and more heavily curled and drilled twists of hair below – share similarities with the execution of the present relief. Another relief by Coysevox, a portrait of the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart dated to 1712 and now in Versailles (Musée national des chateaux de Versailles, inv. MV5795) also shares the precise carving of the curls of hair with a claw chisel and the deep drilling to create volume (illustrated in Maral and Carpentier-Vanhaverbeke, op. cit., p. 265).

The classicism of the present relief may also be compared to the work of Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733) who trained under Coysevox in the seventeenth century. See, for example, the figure of Apollo in Coustou’s relief known as ‘Le Dieu de la Santé montre à la France le buste de Louis XIV, roi de France’ (1693, Louvre, MR2735), illustrated in Souchal, op. cit. (pp. 156-157, no. 12). The head of the Apollo, here shown in high relief with heavily drilled locks of hair and soft features, is reminiscent of the present relief’s modelling and its tendency to idealism.

These similarities to other reliefs by Coysevox and Nicolas Coustou suggest that the present work was executed by a French sculptor who trained or worked in the circle of Coysevox during the reign of Louis XIV in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.

RELATED LITERATURE:

Alexandre Maral and Valérie Carpentier-Vanhaverbeke, Antione Coysevox 1640-1720, Le Sculpteur du Grand Siècle. Paris, 2020, pp. 261-65, no. 257, pp. 318-19, nos. 115 and 40; François Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries, The Reign of Louis XIV, vol. A-F. Oxford, 1977, pp. 156-57 (no. 12) 189-90 (no. 32), 217-18 (no. 96)