GALERIE RATTON-LADRIÈRE

Comparative bibliography:  
Rosario Coppel, From father to son : two alabaster reliefs of the Madonna and child by Felipe Bigarny and Gregorio Pardo, Jaime Eguiguren Studies, Buenos Aires, 2018.    
This small alabaster plaque representing the Virgin nursing the Christ child could be spanish, as well as peruvian, when the country was part of the Spanish crown. It is partly inspired by an Albrecht Dürer print dated  1519, (Bartsch 36). Sixteenth century Spain counts several artist working in alabaster, but the one that stands out and is closest to our sculpture is  Gregorio Bigarny or Vigarny, also called Gregorio Pardo. This artist from Burgos would have settled in Saragoza at 19 and learned there alabaster carving with Damian Forment. After this apprenticeship, he goes back home to Burgos, and then definitely sttles in Toledo after 1537, where he will raise a family. He works with Alonso Berruguette in the Toledo cathedral, fot hte choir stalls. Our plaque is on object for private devotion ; some rare exemples of which appeared Fig. 2 : Bigarny et Pardo, Vierge à l’Enfant, Buenos Aires, Jaime Eguiguren on the art market.

The Titan Epimatheus, brother of Prometheus, is here pictured whith his club he used to fight the Gods, and with his wife Pandora. She puts back in her husband the vase that Hermes had entrusted her. She just opened it, spreading on earth all the evil. Epimetheus whose name means « he who thinks afterwards », stare into space, his hand on his forehead niticing too late the disaster spreading, though his brother had warned him. The ivy on the column might be the symbol of it, endangering the inner structure of it. Here, the artist chose a rare subject, this work is either a modello for a commission we have not yet identified, or just a study made in a French workshop in early XVIIIth century in France.

This female figure surrounded by three children in dynamic poses is the usual depiction of an allegory of Christian Charity. The scene is set in a landscape framed by two trees, one alive, the other dead, which refer, according to a common iconography, to the opposition between spiritual life in religion and the death of the soul outside it.  
A marble relief of the Massacre of the Innocents with a similar composition is located in the roof labyrinth of the Milan Duomo. Published by Rossana Bossaglia in 1973 (Rossana Bossaglia, “Scultura”, in Il Duomo di Milano, II, Milan, 1973, p. 163, fig. 222) but not considered in studies since then, this relief shows a sitting figure surrounded by three children slain by Herod’s minions depicted in the same way in disorganized poses. In addition, the large cross that takes up the entire left part of the composition suggests that an allegory of Christian Faith is illustrated through the episode of the Massacre. This relief is in an area of the Duomo that cannot currently be visited; on the basis of the bad photograph available, it would seem to be by a different artist, but nevertheless gives an initial indication of the context in which the creator of the terracotta catalogued here should be placed. In addition, the idea of a close link between the two works as forming part of the same project executed by different artists seeking to depict the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) should remain a hypothesis.  
On first sight, our Charity has immediate equivalents in Lombard painting of the first decades of the 17th century: the agitation of the composition, with putti in acrobatic poses seems to come directly from paintings by Morazzone (1573-1626), Cerano (1573-1632) or a still young Daniele Crespi (1598-1630); the expressive physiognomy of the faces is especially reminiscent of those painted by Cerano, while for the way the hairstyle is conceived, decorated with ribbons and veils, the artist seems to have in mind the sophisticated language of Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574-1625).  
From the second decade of the 17th century, a new generation of sculptors that was particularly sensitive to the expressive elements depicted by contemporary painters asserted itself around the school of sculpture of the Milan Duomo. Also, painters were often indirectly involved in other aspects of the visual arts: from 1598, Camillo Procaccini (1546-1626) provided drawn models to sculptors and printmakers (for a summary of these activities, see Susanna Zanuso, “The ‘Crucifixion’ and the ‘Last Supper’: Two Bronzes by Francesco Brambilla for Milan Cathedral”, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CLVII, no 1352, November 2015, p. 767 and note 20) and Giulio Cesare Procaccini, began his artistic career as a sculptor before moving definitively to painting (Giacomo Berra, L’attività scultorea di Giulio Cesare Procaccini : documenti e testimonianze, Milan, 1991). Cerano, who also created three dimensional works including the stucco decoration in one of the chapels of the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in 1601-1603, at the end of his career, from 1629, supervised all the sculptural work at the cathedral, creating among other things the magnificent cartoons for the reliefs of the doors of the facade. These were translated into marble by Andrea Biffi (c. 1580-1630), the last representative of his generation, and by the younger artists, Giovan Pietro Lasagna (who died in 1658) and Gaspare Vismara (who died after 1651) (see Rossana Bossaglia and Mia Cinotti, Tesoro e Museo del Duomo, II, Milan, 1978, p. 28, cat. 205-213; for Cerano as a sculptor: Marco Tanzi, “La ‘Madonna’ di San Celso e una proposta per Cerano scultore”, dans Prospettiva, no 78, 1995, p. 75-83; Paola Venturelli, “Aggiunte e puntualizzazioni per Giovann Battista Crespi detto il Cerano a Milano: disegno e arti della modellazione”, in Arte cristiana, vol. XCII, no 826, 2005, p. 57-67).  
Among the sculptors of this particular contingent, the eccentric Giovanni Bellandi appears the best candidate to be the author of the Charity. In 1619, so during his lifetime, he was described by the connoisseur Girolamo Borsieri: “Giovanni Bellano [per Bellandi] haveva già nome tra gli scultori principali ed attendeva alla loro professione ma pare che voglia imitare Giulio Cesare Procaccino curando più tosto il pennello che lo scalpello” (Girolamo Borsieri, Il Supplemento della nobiltà di Milano, Milan, 1619, p. 66) [“Giovanni Bellano [for Bellandi] had already a name among the main sculptors and worked in this profession, but it appears that he wanted to imitate Giulio Cesare Procaccini, taking greater care with the brush than with the chisel”].  
An artist about whom very little is known and for whom there is no recent monograph, only four marble sculptures have been attributed with certainty as being entirely by Bellandi, three at the Duomo and one at the charterhouse of Pavia, all of which are of such visionary quality and audacity of composition compared to those of his contemporaries that they draw our attention. Until now, however, no terracotta modello had been identified. Nothing is known about his training, and the earliest documents that mention his presence among the sculptors of the Duomo in 1608 seem to confirm his absence from there before this date (Archivio della Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano (AVFDMi), Ordinazioni Capitolari, 21, fol. 161v.). He died in 1626, probably quite young as his oldest son was only 10 years old (AVFDMi, c.139/12, n.3), but had nevertheless succeeded in acquiring particular prestige among his contemporaries, despite the shortness of his career. In addition to his works, at least two events that have never been cited among the sporadic modern references to our artist tell us about his qualities: in September 1621, he was asked to value the bronze ornaments on the pedestal of the Equestrian Statue of Ranuccio Farnese by Francesco Mochi at Piacenza (M. De Luca Savelli, “Regesto”, in Francesco Mochi 1580-1654 in occasione delle mostre per il quarto centenario della nascita, Florence, 1981, p. 124) and in 1624-1625, he was the instigator, with the engineer Giovani Paolo Bisnati, of an enquiry into the actions of Fabio Mangone, who was at the time engineer for the Fabbrica del Duomo of Milan (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, cod. S 123 sup.).  
His best known works are reliefs for the belt course of the Duomo’s choir, including the Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, marble sculptures whose originality cannot be underestimated, as well as the striking harmony with the paintings of Cerano and his Lombard followers. The reliefs of The Deposition of Christ (1617-1619) and the Marriage Feast at Cana (1620-1623) are completely autograph. He is documented as being marginally involved in the Birth of Christ (1621-1623) which Marco Antonio Prestinari had left unfinished when he died in 1621, while in his turn Bellandi died before finishing the Raising of the Cross that was finished by Gaspare Vismara (AVFDMi, c.139/12; and AVFDMi, Mandati, ad annum). The critical destiny of the first work mentioned in documents is much more complicated: the large, surprising St. Michael and the Dragon, now in the chapel of San Giovanni Bono. Initially considered a sculpture by Bellandi in artistic literature, from the time of Girolamo Borsieri (1619), already cited, until the fundamental publication by Ugo Nebbia on the reliefs of the Duomo (Nebbia, La scultura nel Duomo di Milano, Milan, 1908, p. 220), the work with its “caratteri estremamente moderni” raised in 1973 “qualche perplessità”, for Rossana Bossaglia who opted in 1978 to attribute it to an artist of the late 18th century, while attributing another St. Michael and the Dragon kept in storage at the Museo del Duomo: an idea that was contrary to all the documentary proof, which however found considerable support until recently (Bossaglia 1973, op. cit., p. 160 note 66 and p. 163 note 96; Bossaglia-Cinotti, 1978, op. cit., p. 27, cat. 187, fig. 199). Recently indeed, the identification of Bellandi’s St. Michael with the sculpture on the altar of San Giovanni Bono, cited from 1611, was confirmed by Giulio Bora (Giulio Bora, “Giovanni Stefano Montalto e la grafica”, in Giovanni Stefano e Giuseppe Montalto, due pittori trevigliesi nella Lombardia barocca, conference papers, Treviglio, Auditorium del Centro Civico Culturale, 12 April 2014, edited by Odette D’Albo, Milan, 2015, p. 64-65), who also thinks Bellandi, a painter as well as a sculptor according to Borsieri’s text, should perhaps “verosimilmente ” be identified with the “Maestro del San Sebastiano Monti”, a painter whose artistic personality has only recently been reconstituted (see Francesco Frangi, Daniele Crespi. La giovinezza ritrovata, Milan, 2012, p. 72-85, fig. 37-49). While waiting for the planned publication of the results of Giulio Bora’s  research on the subject, we can only agree with the fact that Bellandi’s sculptures share with the paintings of the Meastro del San Sebastiano Monti “il sofisticato linguaggio di Giulio Cesare Procaccini insieme a evidenti tratti tipologici e espressivi ceraneschi, tutti intesi in un’accezione affatto personale” [“the sophisticated language of Giulio Cesare Procaccini and obvious typological and expressive characteristics of Cerano”].  
While the identification of the statues of St. Cecilia and St. Theodore commissioned by the cathedral of 1610-1612 is uncertain, the last work by our sculptor of which we can be sure, besides the only one created outside the capital of the duchy, is the Assumption of the Virgin of 1616 at the Charterhouse of Pavia, which is so similar to the figures that appear in the reliefs in the belt course of the choir in Milan that there is no doubt about its attribution (Susanna Zanuso, “La scultura del Seicento negli altari del transetto”, dans AA.VV., La Certosa di Pavia, Parme, 2006, p. 188).  
Having broadly reconstructed the points about which we can be sure in the artistic career of Giovanni Bellandi, the Charity should now be compared with his other works. The similarity is striking between her profile and that of the Duomo St. Michael: both are characterized by the connection of the nose to the forehead without any curve and the lower part of the face with reduced proportions, as well as the pointed chin with a very small mouth and a protruding upper lip. It is also possible to see how the circular swirl formed by the drapery on the Charity’s right side has a precise equivalent in the motif sculpted on St. Michael’s side; in this case, the coat opens out, an audacious and innovative solution in marble sculpture for this period, and also in this detail, the analogy is clear with the Charity’s cloak that expands against the background of the relief. In both works, the same aim is evident, to reproduce the effects that were being tried out in contemporary painting, but the sculptor has more success with terracotta, a material which by its nature allows more flexible and harmonious rendering. Finally the uncovered roots of the tree on the right of the Charity also appear, created with greater delicacy, without the naturalistic base of the St. Michael.  
Without underestimating the difficulty of attributing a new work to an artist who is still little known and for whom no other terracotta modello is known, the suggestion that the Charity could effectively be a work by Giovanni Bellandi is consolidated by observing the cherubs at the Virgin’s feet at the charterhouse of Pavia of 1616 : close to the putti that Cerano modelled in stucco at Santa Maria presso San Celso, they have the same tousled vitality and the same zany and expressive physiognomy as those of the modello presented here.  
Susanna Zanuso

General bibliography: Pierre Pradel, "Documents nouveaux sur le parc de Versailles", Bulletin de la société de l'histoire de l'art français, Armand-Colin, 1936, pp. 190-193. François Souchal, French sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries, the reign of Louis XIV, vol. II, Oxford, Cassirer, 1981, p. 255
The original model of our pedestal was created by the Bâtiments du Roi agency for the Bosquet of the Arc de Triomphe in the gardens of the Château de Versailles. It was created jointly by Pierre Legros the elder (1629-1714) and Benoît Massou (1627-1684). The two sculptors collaborated on numerous occasions during the construction of Versailles, notably for the door tops of the Ambassadors' Staircase (1672-1679) and those of the Queen's Staircase (1680), but also for the spandrels of the Salon de la Paix (ca. 1680). In each case, the two techniques of marble and gilded bronze were combined. This was also the case for the pedestal delivered to the Bosquet of the Arc de Triomphe. Their marble structure was adorned with gilded bronze appliques, as shown in the drawings of the Bâtiments du Roi agency kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale[1]. The Bosquet of the Arc de Triomphe was destroyed in 1793[2] and the bronzes were surely dismantled and melted down. Moreover, the two sheaths preserved today in the Versailles collections[3] are no longer adorned with their bronzes but bear the anchoring marks that testify to their presence. Although our copy is identical in all respects in terms of iconography (tritons and putti into the water games), there are a few differences that do not allow us to link our pedestal to those of Versailles. Firstly, there are no anchor points along the flat parts on which the bronzes could have been placed, and secondly, the upper and lower astragals are entirely bare and devoid of sculpted ornaments. In the Versailles models, the upper astragal has large arch leaves, while the lower one is decorated with a row of acanthus leaves. These differences make our girdle or pedestal a derivative of the Versailles model, probably made by a 17th century French sculptor without being able to give a more precise name.

Contextual bibliography : Gérard de Champeaux, Dom Sébastien Sterckx, Introduction au monde des Symboles, Saint-Léger-Vauban, Zodiaque, 1980.
This pair of capitals featuring birds and fantastic winged animals takes us back to the Romanesque world. Very often, the association of a bird (symbolizing air) and an animal linked to the earth can symbolize man's duality: body and spirit. Gérard de Champeaux and Sébastien Sterckx point out in their well-documented Introduction au monde des symboles, (p. 256) that the two fundamental archetypes of the human psyche [are]: the bird - or more precisely, the wing, the feather - and the terrestrial animal; both being combined around the scheme of verticalization to express the mysterious compound that is man: body and spirit. Romanesque art inherited this imaginary hybrid from the most ancient civilizations, and there's every reason to believe that it has often used it in turn to symbolize the eternal mystery of man. The theme is complex. Romanesque churches have reproduced it thousands and thousands of times... In our example, this permanent duality in the Romanesque world could be explained by the struggle between good and evil. The bird is a symbol of good, while the fantastic animal is linked to the dark world. The use of white marble as a material could, it seems, link the sculpture work to the Italian geographical area.

Already well-known (Avery, 2008, p. 185, cat. 54), this representation of America is one of the singular "machine allegoriche" produced by the highly original, enigmatic creative mind of the Venetian sculptor Francesco Bertos.

With its typical pyramidal structure, the marble consists of a round base on which the scene is laid out around a kind of tree trunk. While not violent, this is a decidedly curious scene, to say the least. On one side, we see a half-reclining nude young man, right arm raised, dagger in hand, sitting on a "lucerta" ("lizard": the way Cesare Ripa in his Iconologia defines what critics generally call an "alligator", meaning the canonical attribute of this continent), which he has just given a mortal blow – we imagine to avenge the death of the child lying out beside him. On the other side, another, naked child stands brandishing stones, which, in a primitive impulse, he is preparing to throw at the female figure (whose left hand holds what was probably once a pointed stake, the right being placed on the visible part of a bow), perched on the shoulders of a sturdy bearded man. The latter has one foot on the dead child and the other on the leg of the young man with the dagger, and holds up a kind of stick in his left hand, while the right hand, emerging from the folds of a falling drape, supports the back of the woman. Facing him, another full-length male figure, whose tensed left leg rests on the ground, while the right is slightly raised, is shown pulling on part of the drapery with his left hand, while the right hand, the arm slightly bent, also seems to be holding a slightly sharpened stone.

Probably one of a series of allegories of continents – of which only the representation of Africa still exists, as far as we know (Avery, 2008, p. 185, cat. 53) – the sculpture presented here should be compared in terms of both stylistic affinity and composition with the group of the same subject now in the Palazzo Reale in Turin, along with many others (idem, p. 183, cat. 50). Even if there are obvious differences between the two versions of the Allegory of America, the similarities are considerable – for example, between the figure of the reclining young man with the dagger in the Piedmontese work and the one here: the pose is the same, as is the depiction of the facial features (the aquiline nose, the ears, the delineation of the lips, etc.) and the modelling of the muscles. Another point in common is the figure with the raised right leg, holding in his left hand the drapery of the female figure at the top of the pyramid. This figure is important in the composition, because it is the only one looking towards the viewer.

As we know, works like these and others produced in bronze, made Francesco Bertos an "uomo celebre... solo nell’arte di simil genere" ("a famous man... singular in this kind of art") (Alice Binion, La Galleria scomparsa del Maresciallo Von der Schulenburg, Milan, 1990, p. 127-128). The importance of these words and this precise definition lies in the fact that they come from the editors of the catalogues for the collection of Marshal von der Schulenburg, one of the greatest collectors of Venetian art in the 18th century. His collection, famous throughout Europe, contained at least twelve works by Bertos, making him the sculptor most represented.

Maichol Clemente

Bibliography
Charles Avery, The Triumph of Motion: Francesco Bertos (1678-1741) and the Art of Sculpture, Turin, 2008.

This delicate terracotta with its elongated proportions recalls the style of the Franco-Piedmontese sculptor Francesco Ladatte who lived in Paris as part of the suite of the Prince de Carignan. He won the Prix de Rome in 1726 and then studied at the French Academy in Rome. He was back in Paris from 1734 to 1744, and was admitted to the Academy as an agréé in 1736. He became a full member in 1741, presenting a marble group of Judith (Musée du Louvre, the terracotta study is in the Musée de Chambéry) as his reception piece. Its sinuosity is closely comparable to our statuette. He was appointed an associate professor and exhibited regularly at the Salon and worked for Versailles, but the best known project from his French period consists of the two plaster sculptures adorning the altars of the transepts of the church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile in Paris, dated 1741. In 1744, he settled definitively in Turin where he was appointed sculptor to the court, while continuing his production of ornamental bronzes, collaborating, amongst others, with the famous cabinetmaker Pietro Piffetti on the queen’s Toilette Cabinet in the royal palace of Turin. Our figure’s face is very close to that of the main figure of the terracotta group of the Triumph of Virtue signed and dated 1744 (Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs), and also to that of military glory in the gilt bronze group that forms the clock Time and Military Glory (Turin, Royal Palace). Our group should therefore be dated to the artist’s second Italian period.

Cybèle, considered The Mother of Gods by the Ancients, is a divinity of Near-Eastern origin, goddess of fertility (here illustrated by the cornucopia), also worshipped by Greeks and Romans. Her head is crowned by a wall with towers, she holds the keys of the earth, giving access to all the wealth.

Jean-Louis Ajon studied at the Toulouse academy sculpture with François Lucas, and drawing with Jean Suau; in 1786 he is at the Paris Academy studying with the sculptor Bridan. The Revolution surprises him that city, where he takes part to the demolition of the Bastille, before returning in his hometown to attempt the grand prix. He will make all of his career in that city and we can mention works for the Dalbade church(canopy, under the direction of Pascal Virebent, and in collaboration with Beurné and Vigan), Notre-Dame de la Daurade (a Black Virgin in 1806, and the the altar for the Holy Thorn, on a drawing by Virebent , of which remain two angels in adoration , gilt wood, in 1812), Saint- Nicolas (a group of Our Lady of Mercy ), Saint-Jérôme(pulpit, on a drawing by Virebent)and the cathedral (the ravishing of saint Augustine, and four trophies). We also know another terracotta sculpture of a seated Mars , signed and titled, belonging to the Musée du Vieux-Toulouse (see exhibition catalogue Toulouse et le Néo-Classicisme, les artistes toulousains de 1775 à 1830, musée des Augustins, 1989-1990, pp.124-125). The two gilt-wood angels, and the terracotta Mars share this massive body that we find here in our Cybèle. Thanks to his academic education, Ajon knew well the antiques without going to Rome: so we can recognize the Ludovisi Mars as inspiration for the Musée du Vieux-Toulouse terracotta, and for ours the Mattei Cérès (for the general figure) and the la Farnèse Flora (for the idea of raising the gown). Ajon’s after-death inventory, discovered by Jérôme Bouchet, to whom we are grateful, in the Archives départementales de Haute-Garonne (archives de Me Prouho), established on October, 3, 1843, mentions many statuettes in plaster or terracotta, either of Antique subjects (« la mort d’Achille en plâtre prisée dix francs », « le cheval Pégase en plâtre prisé trois francs », either modern (« deux petites statues représentant deux joueurs de vielle en terre cuite prisées trois francs »), but also portraits, decorative arts (« douze corbeilles en terre cuite prisées quinze francs »), and religious (among them « une statue en bois représentant notre dame la noire prisée quatre francs », possible modello for the Daurade ?),and a « une vierge en marbre ayant la main gauche appuyée sur un vase prisée quarante francs », material quite unusual in Toulouse.

Three « statue en terre cuite représentant Cérès » are listed in this inventory, the first one valued five francs, the two others fifteen francs each: can we imagine that our Cybèle, with her cornucopia that could refer to the harvest goddess, is one of them, « victim » of a misinterpretation ? Nothing enables us to affirm it, (the inventory give no indication of size, signature, we then suppose that all works are by Ajon), but it is tempting to suggest it.

This polychrome wooden mascaron with a human figure, surrounded by a string of pearls, set in a large shell and decorated with acanthus leaves brings us closer to the Nordic area and more particularly to the art of Johan Gregor Van der Schardt. A sculptor born in Nijmegen in 1530, Schardt spent a long time in Italy, where he was documented in Rome, Bologna and probably Florence in 1560 and in Venice in 1569. The following year he moved to Nuremberg where he worked on the terracotta portraits of Willibald Imhoff and his wife. He made a speciality of these terracotta portraits by developing models in medallions. From 1571 to 1576 he worked for Frederick II of Denmark and for Emperor Maximilian II of Habsburg. He moved back to Nuremberg in 1579 and established his own workshop.

Our decorative bas-relief in carved wood is more in keeping with the master's style, recalling the fine, light forms he gave to female faces, as in the tomb of Ingeborg Skeel (ca. 1545 - 1604) in the Voer church in Vandsyssel, Denmark. Finally, it should be noted that Van der Schardt also participated in the elaboration of the epitaph of the Rosenkrantz family in the church of Hornslet, for which the decorations are richly sculpted and abundant, like our mascaron.

This large and massive marble bas-relief surely has its origins in the sculpture of Southern France at the very end of the 15th century. The Occitan cross on the rider's shield is the symbol of all the regions that speak the Romance language, which does not exclude some geographical areas of Spain (valleys of Catalonia) or Italy (valleys of Italian Piedmont). This same cross was however, from the 11th to the 13th century, the emblem of the Counts of Toulouse before becoming the symbol of the whole southern region of France including Provence, Occitania, and even part of Aquitaine. It is surely in the Occitan part of France that we must look for the origins of this beautiful bas-relief.

France, early 18th century

Celto-Gallic art
ca. 2nd century BC

Key figures in early Neoclassical sculpture in Italy, the brothers Ignazio and Filippo Collino frequently worked in collaboration. The two sculptors studied with Giovanni Battista Maini, devoting their skills to copying Antique statues designed for the Court of Savoy. Appointed members of the Académie de Saint Luc in 1760 and 1763 respectively, Ignazio and Filippo left Rome in 1767 for Turin, where they became sculptors to the court, and produced works in which traces of the Baroque style and Neoclassical innovations are mingled in a highly original way, as with this marble group of the Dying Cleopatra. It has links with a terracotta in a private collection, and shows the stylistic characteristics typical of the Collino brothers in the measured Classicism of the face, the clothes with their dense, Antique-style folds, the size, the somewhat refined quality of the work and the very quality of the marble from Pont (Turin), extracted from quarries whose opening was requested by the two brothers so that they could have access to large quantities of top quality marble to replace the too-costly Carrara stone. The brothers may have been inspired by the Lucretia attributed to the sculptor Philippe Bertrand (1663 - 1724). The pose of the bust, legs and the arms drawn up to the breast are very similar, as are certain details of the clothing. It is possible that the group was made for France, because of the strong links between that country and Turin. Thus, coming as an addition to the works of the Collino brothers, the discovery of this new masterpiece sheds further light on the importance of these two great Piedmontese artists in the second half of the late 18th century.

France, XVIth century