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Lot Essay
Apollo and Daphne
The unveiling in 1625 of the marble group of Apollo and Daphne in the Villa Borghese, Rome, caused a sensation and made a European celebrity of its creator, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). The scene, emblematic of the victory of Chastity over Love, derives from Ovid's Metamorphoses and describes how Apollo, struck by Cupid's golden arrow, pursues Daphne, who has in turn been struck by Cupid's lead arrow, which stirs her to flee. During her pursuit, Daphne prays to her father, the river god Peneus, for salvation and at that moment branches sprout from her arms and roots from her feet and she is eventually transformed into a laurel tree: "a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the ground - her face was hidden with encircling leaves." (Metamorphoses I, 453 ff.)
The model upon which the present bronze is based has previously been attributed both to Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) and Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725). However, recent research has indicated that it is most likely the work of the French sculptor François Lespingola (Berger and Krahn, loc. cit.). In 1665, Lespingola obtained the third sculpture prize at the Académie and gained a Royal Scholarship to study at the newly founded French Royal Academy in Rome, in 1666. Unlike most of his contemporaries, who had to make copies of antiquities, Lespingola was also allowed to create his own models. He returned to Paris in 1675 and was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and in 1676 was fully employed in the service of Louis XIV. In this capacity, his main activity was the design and execution of models for many of the largest and most important royal commissions at the Chateau de Versailles and the Invalides.
The Present Group
The present group compares extremely closely to the example purchased in 1699 by Baron Leplat for Augustus the Strong in Dresden, with only minor differences, especially notable to the truncation and decoration of the base. Even details of the elaborate casting - the figures being executed in many parts and assembled before being screwed to the bronze base - correspond to the Dresden bronze. The variations may be due to the fact - as noted by Malgouyres - that bronzes such as the present example were popularised by intermediaries who took models to different founders for production (op. cit., p. 144). The bronze offered here is a perfect example of the type of highly dynamic and complex multi-figural compositions emerging during the French baroque. Conceived as a fully three-dimensional group, this bronze retains a strong visual impact from every angle.
The unveiling in 1625 of the marble group of Apollo and Daphne in the Villa Borghese, Rome, caused a sensation and made a European celebrity of its creator, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). The scene, emblematic of the victory of Chastity over Love, derives from Ovid's Metamorphoses and describes how Apollo, struck by Cupid's golden arrow, pursues Daphne, who has in turn been struck by Cupid's lead arrow, which stirs her to flee. During her pursuit, Daphne prays to her father, the river god Peneus, for salvation and at that moment branches sprout from her arms and roots from her feet and she is eventually transformed into a laurel tree: "a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the ground - her face was hidden with encircling leaves." (Metamorphoses I, 453 ff.)
The model upon which the present bronze is based has previously been attributed both to Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) and Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725). However, recent research has indicated that it is most likely the work of the French sculptor François Lespingola (Berger and Krahn, loc. cit.). In 1665, Lespingola obtained the third sculpture prize at the Académie and gained a Royal Scholarship to study at the newly founded French Royal Academy in Rome, in 1666. Unlike most of his contemporaries, who had to make copies of antiquities, Lespingola was also allowed to create his own models. He returned to Paris in 1675 and was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and in 1676 was fully employed in the service of Louis XIV. In this capacity, his main activity was the design and execution of models for many of the largest and most important royal commissions at the Chateau de Versailles and the Invalides.
The Present Group
The present group compares extremely closely to the example purchased in 1699 by Baron Leplat for Augustus the Strong in Dresden, with only minor differences, especially notable to the truncation and decoration of the base. Even details of the elaborate casting - the figures being executed in many parts and assembled before being screwed to the bronze base - correspond to the Dresden bronze. The variations may be due to the fact - as noted by Malgouyres - that bronzes such as the present example were popularised by intermediaries who took models to different founders for production (op. cit., p. 144). The bronze offered here is a perfect example of the type of highly dynamic and complex multi-figural compositions emerging during the French baroque. Conceived as a fully three-dimensional group, this bronze retains a strong visual impact from every angle.