A Fine Pair of Napoleon III Gilt-Bronze Allegorical Groups Depicting Music and Wine.

Each group is set on a naturalistically modelled base and finely modelled and chiselled with superb matte and burnished gilding. The first group represents Music, with a seated male figure instructing a young boy on playing the lute; the second figure represents Wine, with a seated bacchante, with vine leaves to her hair and holding aloft a bunch of grapes whilst raising a scallop shell for an attendant child to drink from.

Allegorical and didactic sculptures were highly appreciated in the 19th century, responding to the aesthetic tastes of Neoclassicism and looking back to important examples from the Ancien Régime and the Renaissance. The present figural groups with their exceptional gilding and fine casting are outstanding examples and highly desirable.