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A Poet's Monument attended by Two Female Mourners
Sculptor: Boizot, Louis Simon
Terracotta, on contemporary painted and parcel-gilt wood base (A). Off centre of the group stands an altar surmounted by an urn, the front of the former bearing a tablet inscribed with the letters D.O.M. over a three line illegible inscription, and below it, a winged lyre and foliage. A veiled but demi-nude mourning female figure wearing a medallion with the portrait of a young man on a chain around her neck, is standing on its right side, fastening a garland of roses onto the urn. To the left stands a young girl playing the flute, and holding in her right hand a circlet of pine which she is about to place on the altar. The base is oval and painted pale grey. It has a row of beading round the upper moulding and stylised leaves round the lower moulding. Between them is a vertical area broken by four projecting pilasters. On the former there are alternating anthemions and palmettes, and on each of the latter, a rosette, all in relief, and gilt.
History note: Joseph Bardac sale, Paris 9th December 1927, lot 54; Marius Paulme sale Paris, 15th May 1929, lot 270; Galerie Charpentier sale, Paris, 20th December 1949, lot 103. Daniel Katz Ltd., London.
Purchased with the Cunliffe and Perrins Funds, with contributions from the National Art Collections Fund, and the M&GC Regional Fund administered by the Victoria and Albert Museum
Method of acquisition: Bought (1997) by Daniel Katz Ltd.
18th Century, Late
Louis XVI
Production date:
AD 1790
: dated
Simon-Louis Boizot was born at Gobelins where his father was designer at the royal tapestry factory. He trained in the studio of the sculptor, Michel-Ange Slodtz, and, having won the Prix de Rome in 1762, spent five years there from 1765 to 1770. After his return to Paris he was appointed director of the sculpture department of the Sèvres porcelain factory in 1773, but continued his work as a freelance sculptor.
The delicacy of the modelling, and fine detail of this terracotta suggests that it was not conceived as a model for a larger monument in a different medium, but as a finished sculpture in its own right. The older woman may represent Erato, the muse of lyric poetry, for the lyre on the front of the pedestal supporting the funerary urn, suggests that the ashes it contained were those of a poet. Possibly it was commissioned to commemorate Chevalier Antoine Bertin, a captain in the French cavalry, who published a volume of poems, L'Amour, in 1780, and died aged thirty-seven in 1790.
Base Decoration
composed of
gilt
paint
Base
composed of
wood (plant material)
Figure
composed of
terracotta
Wood Base
Depth 24 cm
Height 7.5 cm
Length 42 cm
Terracotta
Height 36.5 cm
Terracotta Base
Width 36.5 cm
Inscription present: signed and dated
Accession number: M.55 & A-1997
Primary reference Number: 29970
External ID: CAM_CCF_M_55 & A_1997
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "A Poet's Monument attended by Two Female Mourners" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/29970 Accessed: 2024-11-02 16:19:08
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{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/29970
|title=A Poet's Monument attended by Two Female Mourners
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-02 16:19:08|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">A Poet's Monument attended by Two Female Mourners</figcaption>
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