Tuesday, December 29, 2015

European marble sculpture, 15th-19th centuries

Jean Antoine Houdon
Marble bust of Denis Diderot
1773
Metropolitan Museum of Art

European marble sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This group covers just four hundred years, from the early 1400s to the early 1800s. .
.
Italian sculptor
Marble relief with angel
ca. 1430-35
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Battista Lorenzi
Marble statues of Alpheus & Arethusa, from a grotto
1568-70
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tullio Lombardo
Marble statue of Adam, from a tomb installation
ca. 1490-95
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antonio Novelli
Marble bust of Christ the Redeemer, from a larger sculptural scene
ca. 1650
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tullio Lombardo & workshop
Marble three-quarter statue of a young warrior, possibly a guardian figure from a tomb
early 16th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Antoine Houdon
Marble statue of a bather, from a fountain
1782
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Philippe Laurent Roland
Self-portrait
1785
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Antoine Houdon
Marble bust of Sabine Houdon, the artist's daughter
1788
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Philippe Laurent Roland
Painted terracotta bust of a sleeping boy
ca. 1774
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle
Marble bust of Madame de Pompadour
ca. 1748-51
Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
Bertel Thorvaldsen
Marble relief of Nessus abducting Dejanira
1820s
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) designed his 19th-century relief of a centaur-abduction (immediately above) to invite comparison with the Parthenon friezes with centaurs among the so-called Elgin Marbles that had recently been brought to London. Thorvaldsen was widely admired in his day for successfully reviving the standards of ancient sculpture. But no one any longer believes that he succeeded in doing that.

Metope from the Parthenon with centaur
447-438 BC
British Museum

Metope from the Parthenon with centaur
447-438 BC
British Museum