‘Nymphes à la Coquille’ A Louis XV Style Sculptural Centrepiece

Description

A Louis XV Style Gilt-Bronze Sculptural Centrepiece, Titled ‘Nymphes à la Coquille’ (‘Nymphs with Shell’).

Modelled with two nymphs holding aloft a shell and seated on a rockwork base flanked by shallow basins. Raised on dragon ‘chimera’ corner supports atop a waterfall and pierced shellwork foot.

The base variously stamped ‘B’.

France, Circa 1840.

Titled ‘Nymphes à la Coquille’ (‘Nymphs with Shell’), the design for this table centrepiece was created in 1761 by Jean-Claude Duplessis (1699-1774), goldsmith to the king. It was first made by Sèvres in soft-paste biscuit porcelain.

‘Nymphes à la Coquille’ in Sèvres soft-paste biscuit porcelain designed by Jean-Claude Duplessis and Etienne-Maurice Falconet, circa 1761 (© RMN-Grand Palais / Public Domain).

The style of the female figures show the influence of Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-91) who was chief artist in charge of sculpture at the Sèvres Manufactory from 1757. In 1762, the Marquise de Pompadour purchased an example, which appeared two years later in her posthumous inventory. Conceived in biscuit porcelain, this example in gilt-bronze revives the model and dates to the mid-19th century when the maker embellished the original design with the addition of the dragon supports and a shellwork base.