White Carrara Marble Figure of a Putto with a Serpent

White Carrara Marble Figure of a Putto with a Serpent.

After Francois Duquesnoy  (1597 – 1643).

Italy.

Early Nineteenth Century.   

The figure of a naked putto finely carved in white carrara marble after the celebrated work by Francois Duquesnoy. The putto shown lying on a grassy bank, his head resting on a cloth draped over a rocky outcrop, grasping a serpent in his right hand.  

Francois Duquesnoy was a Flemish Baroque sculptor born in Brussels, son of Jerome Duquesnoy. His father was sculptor of the Mannekin Pis fountain (1619) in Brussels and Court Sculptor to Archduke Albert, Governor of the Low Countries, who sponsored Francois’s move to Rome.

On his arrival in Rome in 1816 Duquesnoy made a detailed study of antique sculpture.

He was to collaborate with Bernini on the design for the baldacchino in St Peter’s, where the four angels are his work.

His characteristic plump putti, with carefully observed features and detailed heads, became the accepted conventional form, celebrated in the paintings of Rubens.

Rubens wrote to Duquesnoy in 1640 thanking him for sending him casts of the putti from his monument to Ferdinand van den Eynden in Santa Maria dell Anima, Rome.  

Provenance:

By repute, at one time the property of Queen Victoria’s veterinary surgeon.

Measurements:-  16 ¾” (42.5cm) Wide,  8 ¾” (22.5cm) Deep,  7 ¾” (19.5cm)       

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

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