Sotheby's London, 8 December 2006, lot 132;
Daniel Katz Ltd., London, 1987

In 1938, Bellamy Gardner illustrated the Chelsea factory porcelain bust of the Laughing child, now in the Ashmolean Museum, as a work modelled by the English sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac. Scholars have since questioned whether the attribution is tenable. While Esdaile accepted it, both Penny and Baker refrained from securely linking it to Roubiliac. Regardless of who the author is, the head is clearly based on 17th century Baroque prototypes and in particular Bernini and Duquesnoy.
Unusual for its small scale in the context of English 18th century bronze work, the model is sometimes found paired with the bust of a crying child. If intended as pendants, together they may reveal their original identification as the young Heraclitus and Democritus, the cheerful (i.e. laughing) and gloomy (i.e. crying) Greek philosphers. However the Laughing Child model was evidently more popular  than its counterpart and largely reproduced independently. The present cast probably retains its original base and is set apart from other casts by its high-quality facture. A marble version of the Laughing Child by Nollekens, without pendant, is in the Hermitage.

RELATED LITERATURE
Nicholas Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1992, 3 vols., no.457;
Malcolm Baker, Figured in Marble: the making and viewing of Eighteenth century Sculpture, London, 2000, pp.90-93, pl𝔍s.69-70 and note 35, pp.174-75