French school circa 1700. - Lot 169

Lot 169
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
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Result : 6 082EUR
French school circa 1700. - Lot 169
French school circa 1700. Daphne pursued by Apollo. Marble relief. Bears an antique label: "le garde meuble public bedel cie et le n° 41669". (Accidents and restorations.) Height 40.5 cm; Width: 36.5 cm. Daphne, frightened and pursued by Apollo's ardor, sees her father, the river god Peneus, appear. As she flees, she begs her father to take away her beauty, which is becoming her undoing, and asks him to protect her from this all-too-pressing suitor. Suddenly, her limbs go numb, her hair turns to foliage, her arms stretch out like twigs and her feet become roots. She has metamorphosed into a laurel tree to escape Apollo's violent passion. From that day on, the laurel will be Apollo's sacred tree, and the laurel wreath will adorn the brow of warriors. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) on canvas and Le Bernin (1598-1680) in marble offered us the most famous and inspired representations of this episode from Greek mythology. The author of our beautiful relief is undoubtedly familiar with both these brilliant versions, and draws his inspiration from both Poussin's measured classicism and Bernini's resounding baroque to offer us a work in keeping with the codes of French classicism advocated at Versailles by Charles Le Brun. Expert : Cabinet LACROIX & JEANNEST
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