Neoclassical Sculptures
NEOCLASSICAL STYLE
Neoclassical design emerged in Europe in the 1750s, as the Age of Enlightenment reached full flower. Neoclassical furniture took its cues from the styles of ancient Rome and Athens: symmetrical, ordered, dignified forms with such details as tapered and fluted chair and table legs, backrest finials and scrolled arms.
Over a period of some 20 years, first in France and later in Britain, neoclassical design — also known as Louis XVI, or Louis Seize — would supersede the lithe and curvaceous Rococo or Louis XV style.
The first half of the 18th century had seen a rebirth of interest in classical antiquity. The "Grand Tour" of Europe, codified as a part of the proper education of a patrician gentleman, included an extended visit to Rome. Some ventured further, to sketch the ruins of ancient Greece. These drawings and others — particularly those derived from the surprising and rich archaeological discoveries in the 1730s and ’40s at the sites of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum — caused great excitement among intellectuals and aesthetes alike.
Neoclassical furniture is meant to reflect both grace and power. The overall appearance of neoclassical chairs, tables and cabinetry is strong and rectilinear. These pieces are, in effect, classical architecture in miniature: chair and table legs are shaped like columns; cabinets are constructed with elements that mirror friezes and pediments.
Yet neoclassicism is enlivened by gilt and silver leaf, marquetry, and carved and applied ornamental motifs based on Greek and Roman sculpture: acanthus leaves, garlands, laurel wreaths, sheaves of arrow, medallions and chair splats are carved in the shapes of lyres and urns. Ormolu — or elaborate bronze gilding — was essential to French design in the 18th and 19th centuries as a cornerstone of the neoclassical and Empire styles.
As you can see from the furniture on these pages, there is a bit of whimsy in such stately pieces — a touch of lightness that will always keep neoclassicism fresh.
Find antique neoclassical furniture today on 1stDibs.
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Style: Neoclassical
Creator: Bow Porcelain
Figure of a Nun, Perhaps Heloise, Bow Porcelain Factory, circa 1750
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
A classic example of early bow porcelain.
The figure is of a Dominican Nun, and is based on a continental model, probably Meissen.
Bow produced a number of apparently religious...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Pair of Lions. Bow Porcelain C1750
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
An attractive pair of lions, in the white; possibly based on a Chinese original.
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Winter, from the Four Seasons, Bow Porcelain Factory, circa 1750
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
A personification of Winter, from The Four Seasons.
Unusually fine condition for a figure of this period.
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Fortune Teller Figure. Bow Porcelain C1750
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
A young woman standing with the remains of a staff in her left hand, and in apparent apprehension as her future and fortune is being read by an exotic, enigmatic, bearded figure, app...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure, Mercury, Bow Porcelain, circa 1748
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
He wears a winged helmet and sandals, a loosely draped pink, white, and yellow washed cloak over a short tunic, and leans arrogantly against bales, his message sack over his left sho...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure: Female Pedlar, Possibly Peg Woffington, Bow Porcelain, circa 1758
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
On a mound base decorated with painted floral sprigs. She wears a pale pink-mauve washed shift with iron-red sleeves and cloak, pale mauve and pink stomacher and a sprigged white shi...
Category
Late 18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure, Sportsman Toper, Bow Porcelain Factory, circa 1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Probably an early prototype, the largely open base showing an apparently unique structure described by Watney as ‘a favourite primitive buttressed by a strong overall cone-shape and further strengthened by a cut-out additional layer inside the base in the manner of pastry making.’ (Freeman Collection, Forward, 1982).
Toper is an old English word for a drunk.
Annulet Mark.
Prov: Taylor Coll, Albert Amor...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure 'Scapino, ' from the Commedia Dell'arte, Bow Porcelain, circa 1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Scappino, or Scapin, a zany (zanni) character from the commedia dell'arte: a buffoon, schemer and scoundrel, and the title character in Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin, first staged in 1671. The Bow figure shows him standing to right against a tree stump, right leg forward; right arm concealed in a tabarro (cape), and a mask in his left hand. He wears a white doublet, gilt frogged in the Hungarian manner, neck ruff, pale yellow-washed breeches above buckled shoes; a pouch on a red-brown strap and a dagger in a scabbard at the waist. Low square plinth base washed in typical pale Bow ‘lettuce’ green. No discernible translucency. H. 5.0 in (12.6 cm).
Provenance: Taylor Collection; Simon Spero London, 2008; the Faith and Dewayne Perry Collection.
The Scapino figure was presumably based on the Meissen modelled 1743-45 by Peter Reinicke, assisted by Käendler, and from the series produced for Johann Adlf II, Duke of Weissenfels, after an engraving by Francois Joullain (1662-1753) for Riccobin’s Historie du Théatre Italien, 1728. The modelling and features of the Bow figure suggest the work of the ‘Muses Modeller’, and the pallete, gilding and detail are also those of the muses modeller figures. This figure illustrated Bradshaw, 1992, as circa 1753, Plate 10 (A12), p.64.
Scapino is depicted musically in William...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure of Pointing Boy by Bow Porcelain Factory, circa 1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Presumably based on the work of the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy (1597-1643), also known as Il Fiammingo.
A small series of Chelsea figures from the late 1740s was also ba...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure of The Vintner's Companion, Bow Porcelain Factory, circa 1748
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Moulded in a dense body in typical muses modeller style and with slightly drab glaze. She stands by a fruiting vinestock and carries an open basket of grapes in her right hand, her e...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Doctor, from the Commedia Dell'arte, Bow Porcelain, circa 1752
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Il Dottore from the Commedia dell’Arte, in the white.
He stands in an histrionic pose against a tree stump and wears a high brimmed hat (presumably a black academic bonnet), long-buttoned coat over frilled cuffs, falling jabeaux, breeches, boots and a cloak; his right hand on hip, his left arm and hand raised. Slightly grey-white porcelain; even, unctuous glaze. Straw translucency. Underside wiped; air hole at centre. Square hole at rear for mount. Measure: H 6.3 in (16 cm).
Provenance: Taylor Collection, from Stockspring Antiques, London, 1998. The Miss G...
Category
Late 18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Figure: David Garrick and the Shoeshine Boy, Bow Porcelain, circa 1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
A fashionably dressed gentleman, almost certainly the actor David Garrick: he wears a white frockcoat, pink waistcoat and red breeches, all with embroide...
Category
Late 18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Pair of figures: Jupiter and Juno, or Zeus and Hera. Bow Porcelain C1752
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
She stands barefoot, wearing a long-sleeved robe in white, deep pink and washed pale yellow and partly edged with gold; a red and gilt-topped sceptre in her right hand, an outsize pe...
Category
1750s English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Kitty Clive Figure
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
One of Bow's theatrical figures.
The actress Mrs Catherine (Kitty) Clive, 1711-1785, as Mrs Riot, the Fine Lady, introduced, with The Fine Gentleman, into David Garrick...
Category
Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
Pair of Itinerant Ballad Singer figures. Bow porcelain C1748
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Flemish man and wife, in the white. He wears an open coat, waistcoat, breeches and tricorn hat, and plays a hurdy-gurdy. She wears a sleeved dress, long apron and linen cap and carri...
Category
1740s English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
Materials
Porcelain
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Figure 'Charity, ' Bow Porcelain, circa 1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Figure of a young woman emblematic of Charity as one of the Three Theological Virtues.
In the white, she stands loosely robed and with sash and head scarf, a small child lifted to her left breast and a slightly older child, to whom she is giving a coin, kneeling at right. All on a naturalistically moulded ‘rocky’ base. White body with thick clear glaze. Slight green-straw translucency. Base unglazed. H.10.0 in (25.3 cm).
Provenance: Taylor Collection; E. & H. Manners, London, 2013.
The Bow Charity figure is probably a slightly later work of the so-called Muses Modeller, and appears to have been unusual to have been left in the white. As suggested by Yarbrough, 1996, the existing enamelled examples appear likely to have been decorated in the studio of William Duesbury or other external enameller. Later C.18th European examples of a different form are recorded, as are early C.19th pearlware examples, some with painted detailing. The Collection group was probably based on an original Meissen model by J. F. Eberlein, circa 1750, possibly after a C17th bronze...
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Pair of Birds in Branches, Bow Porcelain, circa 1749
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
An important, early example of Bow animal figures.
Two pairs of feeding birds, each bird on a branch from a low divided tree stump. All four birds basically identical, with each pair symmetrically perched in facing positions. The birds apparently solid, and all somewhat naively hand-modelled with bulbous eyes, exaggerated beaks, (with the remains of a worm), disproportionately detailed representation of wing and tail feathers, and very heavily undercut markings on the upper wings. The birds in a dense, heavy porcelain body, with a dull blue-grey glaze with considerable similarity to the Bow ‘drab ware’ glaze. No discernible translucency, presumably due to the heaviness of the molding.
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Harlequin and Columbine Dancing, Commedia Dell'arte, Bow Porcelain C1754
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Dancers, modelled in the round, holding closely and each with one leg raised. He wears a rimmed hat with a yellow flowerhead; she bare headed with long soft brown plaits at her back....
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Figure representing Matrimony. Bow Porcelain C1751
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
A young man and woman seated on a green grassed mound, his right arm around her shoulder and his left arm supporting a yellow bird cage with a bird to which she is offering leaves. He wears a pink washed coat with gilt edging, white cravat, a deep-pink gilt-buttoned waistcoat above blue breeches with gilt garters and floral rosettes; white hose and yellow shoes, and a high, gilt-edged, curved hat. The young woman is bare headed, her hair tied with a blue flower; dark-brown ear rings, and a red ribbon around her neck. She wears a yellow bodice and a flowing full-length white dress painted with flower and gilt-centred sprigs in rose and blue with green leaves, and with pink-red shoes showing beneath the gilt hem. The whole precisely modelled albeit with some apparent firing difficulties on the underside and running of the glaze. H. 7.4 in (18.8 cm).
The cage represents marriage; this example is unusual as it more often the female holds the cage, hoping to ensnare the male.
Provenance: Anon, Bonhams, London, December 2010, Lot #106.
The Bow group was modelled by the Bow Muses modeller and shows the typical characteristics of the muse figures. The group was almost certainly derived from the Meissen of J. J. Kändler, late 1730s or early 1740s, probably from engravings by François Boucher: ‘Le Dénicheur de Moineaux’, 1727, after a painting by Watteau of 1710, and/or Les Amours du Bocage after Nicholas Lancret...
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Henry Woodward Figure. Bow Porcelain C1749
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
The actor Henry Woodward, 1714-77, in the white, shown in the role of The Fine Gentleman as introduced into Lethe in 1749, and taken from an undated mezzotint by James McArdell after Francis Hayman. One of the theatrical figures for which Bow is known; and one of the best known of the theatrical figures.
He stands, hands in pockets, legs astride, on a flat square base in front of a ‘broken’ vertical plinth (which acts as a structural support). He wears a long, open, wide-tailed frock coat with embroided buttons, collar and large cuffs, all above a partially buttoned under-shirt with cravat at collar, his knee-length buttoned breeches tied above stockinged legs and feet in buckled shoes; a large tricorn hat above long hair and flower-tied queue. A sword at his left. H. H. 10.0 in (25.5 cm).
Provenance: Private Collection, Melbourne, 1969.
Lethe was first produced as an afterpiece in April 1745, followed by a series of revisions until 1772. The most popular of these was that introduced in 1749 in which David Garrick included the roles of the Fine Lady, Mrs Riot, and the Fine Gentleman, played by Kitty Clive...
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Mid-18th Century English Antique Neoclassical Sculptures
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Pair of Pug Dogs. Bow Porcelain C1754
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
In the white. Each recumbent on an integrated base moulded as a cushion with ‘embroidered’ edge and tasselled corners; the bitch with head raised, the dog sleeping with head turned, ...
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Neoclassical sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a broad range of unique Neoclassical sculptures for sale on 1stDibs. Many of these items were first offered in the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artisans have continued to produce works inspired by this style. If you’re looking to add vintage sculptures created in this style to your space, the works available on 1stDibs include decorative objects, wall decorations and other home furnishings, frequently crafted with metal, bronze and other materials. If you’re shopping for used Neoclassical sculptures made in a specific country, there are Europe, France, and Germany pieces for sale on 1stDibs. While there are many designers and brands associated with original sculptures, popular names associated with this style include Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Paul Edouard Delabriere, Ernest Rancoulet, and Friedrich Gornik. It’s true that these talented designers have at times inspired knockoffs, but our experienced specialists have partnered with only top vetted sellers to offer authentic pieces that come with a buyer protection guarantee. Prices for sculptures differ depending upon multiple factors, including designer, materials, construction methods, condition and provenance. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $320 and tops out at $8,500 while the average work can sell for $825.
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