Claude Michel, called Clodion

Clodion was arguably the greatest master of French 18th-century terracotta small sculpture. Trained by his uncle Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, whose sculptural groups adorn the gardens of Versailles and Sanssouci, Clodion studied under Pigalle and won the Prix de Rome in 1759, departing for the Eternal City only in 1762 following a period as a student at the Ecole Royale des Elèves Protégés.

The present terracotta is modelled after Clodion's Satyre couronnant une Bacchante, which is in the musée du Louvre (inv. no. RF 2986). 

RELATED LITERATURE

A. L. Poulet, G. Scherf, Clodion 1738-1814, exh. cat. musée du Louvre, Paris, 1992, p. 369 - 371, no. 80