Sculpted marble PLATE in high relief representing a bacchanal of nine children in a wooded landscape playing with a goat and a bovid, a second goat visible behind a tree at the left end. In the foreground, two children fighting over a bunch of grapes...

Sculpted marble PLATE in high relief representing a bacchanal of nine children in a wooded landscape playing with a goat and a bovid, a second goat visible behind a tree at the left end. In the foreground, two children fighting over a bunch of grapes, two others holding a basket; in the background, in very low relief or simply incised, there is a thatched cottage and, in the middle of the hills, a figure and a goat; in the background of the sky, two birds are flying in clouds.
Entourage of François du Quesnoy, 17th century
Height: 46.4 cm - Width: 62 cm - Depth: 5.8 cm.
(slightly missing at the upper edge)
The theme of this beautifully executed plaque refers to that of children's games or bacchanals, a subject directly inspired by ancient statuary and in particular scenes of bachic festivities decorating sarcophagi with their grape-picker putti. These representations of childhood met with great success in Italy in the seventeenth century following the great impression made by Titian's Offering of Love to Venus, offered to the Ludovisi in 1621, where a multitude of cupids form a stirring and joyful assembly. Painters working in Rome, such as
Guido Reni, Poussin, the Dominiquin or the Albanian, interpreted young children in different animated postures in their canvases. In sculpture, it was the Flemish painter François Duquesnoy, who was very close to Poussin, who made it his speciality to such an extent that he received the nickname Il fattore di putti. Two of his reliefs, the Bacchanal of children with a goat and the Sleeping Silence with a restive donkey, were a great success and were thus the subject of numerous versions (figs. a and b).
Here, the composition is less bushy and eventful, with the pairs of children arranged almost symmetrically at the bottom and the important place given to the bovid. The figuration of the bovid, whose rump occupies the centre of the plate, is, on the other hand, highly original: he turns his head surrounded by branches to the spectator, while the child straddling his back, completely overturned, presents his belly, his face largely hidden by his right arm. The craftsmanship shows great mastery in the execution of the various shots, ranging from the strong relief for the couple of children to finely engraved lines suggesting the minute details in the distance. In spite of research, it has not been possible to put a name to the author of this bacchanal, a sculptor who is nonetheless a skilled sculptor who knows how to handle the chisel and the drill bit with undeniable technical ability and who shows a certain inventiveness and originality in the treatment of a classical subject. It seems very likely that this artist, probably Flemish, knew the work of Duquesnoy, a native of Brussels, as this marble slab with its bacchanal of naked children waving in a restricted landscaped setting, with trees in the background and in the corners, echoes the works of the famous putti maker.
Work consulted: M. Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy 1597-1643,
Paris, 2005. Automatically translated by DeepL. To see the original version, click here.