Rococo Figurative Sculptures

Clock holder sculpture in gilded wood. Venice, 18th century. 9 x 7 x h 20 cm each. 19 x 7.5 x h 25cm. Entirely in finely carved and gilded wood, depicting a Roman maid with a baske...

Carved wooden sculpture - Saint - Venice, 18th century. 10 x 6 x h 29cm. Entirely in carved wood. Condition report: Good state of conservation of the sculptural work, there are si...

Table sculpture (Venice, 18th century) - Prophet. 10 x 9 x h 28 cm. Entirely in carved and lacquered wood. Condition report: Good state of conservation of the sculptural work, the...

Carved and gilded wooden table sculpture - Madonna crowned with Child. Italy, 18th century. 15 x 10 x h 32 cm. Entirely in carved and gilded w...

Clodion Michel (1738-1814) : 19th C. sculpture, bronze with medal patina, nude faun woman sitting on a rock and 2 puttis, signed on the back cast by Vittoz Claude Michel Clodion was ...

Clodion Michel (1738-1814) : 19th C. sculpture, bronze with medal patina, nude faun woman sitting on a rock and 2 puttis, signed on the back cast by Vittoz Claude Michel Clodion was ...

The sculptor has portrayed the moment just before the young girl's bath, as she puts her foot tentatively forward to test the temperature of the water. This graceful gesture was inspired by the Bather, painted in 1725 by François Lemoyne (author of large decorative works such as the ceiling of the Hercules Salon at Versailles), and made popular by engravings. Falconet captures the moment when a young girl becomes a woman, thereby defining a new feminine aesthetic - long, slender body, narrow hips, sloping shoulders, and small breasts - which was to impregnate his future work and influence his contemporaries. The girl's head is small and her oval face forms a triangle. Her hairstyle was inspired by antiquity: smooth on top, with a central parting. It appealed to Mme du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, who wears the same style in the portrait sculpted by Augustin Pajou in 1772. The bather is entirely naked, but not immodest. The purity of line, the reserved pose (leaning slightly forward to extend her foot), the graceful position of the arms, and the candid face with lowered eyelids, avoid all vulgarity and keep the spectator at a certain distance. Yet the statuette is neither cold nor inert. The slightly jutting hip counterbalances the sideways swing of the arms in a dancing movement. And above all, Falconet imparted an impression of living flesh to his sculpture, with the soft shine of the marble suggesting the grain and shiver of the skin. Étienne Maurice Falconet (1 December 1716 – 24 January 1791) was a French baroque, rococo and neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the Bronze Horseman (1782), in St. Petersburg, Russia, and for the small statues he produced in series for the Royal Sévres Porcelain Manufactory. Falconet was born to a poor family in Paris. He was at first apprenticed to a carpenter, but some of his clay figures, with the making of which he occupied his leisure hours, attracted the notice of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who made him his pupil. One of his most successful early sculptures was of Milo of Croton...

A very beautiful and impressive sculpture of Flora, carved in the XVIII in Italy probably in Venice. The quality of the carving and the skill of the sculptor artist that make this ma...

Lovely Alabaster figure of a woman with detachable pedestal by Giuseppe Bessi. Giuseppe (Professor) Bessi was an Italian sculptor famed for his lifelike busts and sculptures, such a...