Clodion (Claude Michel) / Nymph and Satyr Carousing / 18th century (ca. 1780-90)

Clodion (Claude Michel)
Nymph and Satyr Carousing
18th century (ca. 1780-90)
View Larger Image

View Full Catalog Record Below

This image is one of over 108,000 from the AMICA Library (formerly The Art Museum Image Consortium Library- The AMICO Library™), a growing online collection of high-quality, digital art images from over 20 museums around the world. www.davidrumsey.com/amica offers subscriptions to this collection, the finest art image database available on the internet. EVERY image has full curatorial text and can be studied in depth by zooming into the smallest details from within the Image Workspace.

Preview the AMICA Library™ Public Collection in Luna Browser Now

Cultures and time periods represented range from contemporary art, to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works.
Types of works include paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, costumes, jewelry, furniture, prints, photographs, textiles, decorative art, books and manuscripts.

Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com .

Creator Name: Clodion (Claude Michel)
Creator Role: Sculptor
Creator Dates/Places: 1738-1814
Creator Name-CRT: Clodion (Claude Michel)
Title: Nymph and Satyr Carousing
View: Full View
Creation Start Date: 1780
Creation End Date: 1790
Creation Date: 18th century (ca. 1780-90)
Object Type: Sculpture
Materials and Techniques: terracotta
Dimensions: H. 23 1/4 in. (59.1 cm)
AMICA Contributor: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Owner Location: New York, New York, USA
ID Number: 14.40.687
Credit Line: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913
Rights: http://www.metmuseum.org/
Context:

Clodion, whose career spanned the last decades of the ancien régime through the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign, embraced his era's taste for antiquity. Sometimes this preference is more apparent in his choice of theme than in his style. While often Neoclassical, his manner at times remained quite Rococo, as in the present example. Although Clodion received a number of important commissions for monumental marble sculptures, his fame and popularity rested on his skill at modeling small-scale terracotta groups for private collectors.

The seeming spontaneity of this composition, a rapturous embrace, in which it appears that the senses are totally abandoned, was achieved only after much meditation. This work is one of the most minutely studied of all the Bacchic orgies that were Clodion's specialty. The front and back show deliberate adjustments of angles, openings, and masses, all checked and balanced as the model passed under his fingers on his trestle table.

Clodion was deeply steeped in the imagery of Greek and Roman art, but the deliciously charged rhythms seen here are entirely his own. He made such works for connoisseurs during his stay in Rome from 1762 to 1771, but this group is so highly evolved that it may date to the 1780s.

AMICA ID: MMA_.14.40.687
AMICA Library Year: 2000
Media Metadata Rights: Copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder.