A Terracotta Figure of a Reclining Nymph, La Source by Clodion

French, Early 19th Century

The naked figure of a nymph with her head resting on her arm and her eyes closed, is reclining on drapery, and leaning against an overturned urn, which is issuing water.  On marblised wood base with a band of gilt beading.  Signed Clodion.

Three very similar figures of La Source are housed in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (see Poulet and Scherf, 1992, p.377, fig. 199) the Pushkin, Moscow and the Huntingdon Art Gallery, San Marino.  These terracottas are after the stone sculptures by Clodion commissioned by the Baron de Besenval for his sale de bains in the Hotel Besenval which was completed in 1782.  The sculptures are known from an early twentieth-century photograph (op.cit., p.249) and from the original drawings for the sale de bains by the architect Alexandre-Theodore Brongniart (1739-1813) (op.cit., p. 247, cat. Nos. 50 and 51 and p. 241, fig. 126) with whom Clodion also worked on other occasions.