Description
Attribué à Félix LECOMTE (1737-1817) Equality Circa 1773. Sketch in terra cotta. Probably the one presented at the Salon of 1773. H: 26.6 cm on a blackened and gilded wood base decorated with lion heads and garlands H: 20 cm Equality in the guise of a young woman carries a swallow's nest in her right hand and a balance in her left. A cornucopia is inverted at her feet. The scales, symbolizing justice and weighing each person's actions fairly, are an obvious choice for this allegory. In their work l'Iconologie... first published in 1644, Cesare Ripa and Jean Baudoin also explain the significance of the swallow's nest: "... this charitable bird, which gives equal portions to its young, and never takes anything from one to give to another". Still steeped in the late 18th century, this statuette's already neo-classical treatment is akin to the style of artist Félix Lecomte. A pupil of Falconet and Louis-Claude Vassé, he won first prize in sculpture in 1758, and entered the École royale des élèves protégé the same year. In 1761, he was admitted to the Académie de France in Rome. On his return to Paris, he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and named académicien in 1771. He exhibited regularly at the Salons du Louvre from 1769 to 1793. Our work could be the sketch representing a figure of Equality presented by the artist at the 1773 Salon."
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Attribué à Félix LECOMTE (1737-1817) Equality Circa 1773. Sketch in terra cotta. Probably the one presented at the Salon of 1773. H: 26.6 cm on a blackened and gilded wood base decorated with lion heads and garlands H: 20 cm Equality in the guise of a young woman carries a swallow's nest in her right hand and a balance in her left. A cornucopia is inverted at her feet. The scales, symbolizing justice and weighing each person's actions fairly, are an obvious choice for this allegory. In their work l'Iconologie... first published in 1644, Cesare Ripa and Jean Baudoin also explain the significance of the swallow's nest: "... this charitable bird, which gives equal portions to its young, and never takes anything from one to give to another". Still steeped in the late 18th century, this statuette's already neo-classical treatment is akin to the style of artist Félix Lecomte. A pupil of Falconet and Louis-Claude Vassé, he won first prize in sculpture in 1758, and entered the École royale des élèves protégé the same year. In 1761, he was admitted to the Académie de France in Rome. On his return to Paris, he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and named académicien in 1771. He exhibited regularly at the Salons du Louvre from 1769 to 1793. Our work could be the sketch representing a figure of Equality presented by the artist at the 1773 Salon."
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