Lady Jane Abdy (1934-2015)

Her sale, Christie's, London♍, 25 April 2017, lot 35

This charming relief of a Bacchante reclining with a young satyr exhibits a freshness and quality of modelling that could only be the work of Clodion's most talented student, Joseph Charles Marin. Marin worked most frequently in clay and favoured bacchic themes, a taste he shared with Clodion. While he emulated the latter’s graceful style, he created original works which show his remarkable ability to render subtle material contrasts, and an added touch of realism. Marin enjoyed a successful career working for private patrons and exhibiting at Salons from 1791 to 1833. Most of his works are terracotta busts and statuettes in the tradition of Rococo eroticism, showing a marked interest in varieties of texture. In 1801 he won the Prix de Rome for sculpture with the classicizing plaster bas-relief of Caius Gracchus Leaving his Wife Licinia to Rejoin his Partisans (Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts); this work and the bold and free terracotta sketch of Roman Charity (c. 1✱805; Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts) show that Marin was able to produce original works in different styles. 

Reliefs by Marin are relatively rare. On the present one, the composition and the free quality of the modelling clearly display the artist’s remarkable skill in handling clay. Marin smoothed, scored and chiseled the surface in such a way as to create an enchanting variety of textures, from 🌳the barely marked details o𒁏f a tree and leaves, to the thick fur found on the satyr' legs and behind the bacchante. 

The late Lady Abdy was a familiar and respected figures in the salerooms꧑ of London and Paris. 19th Century French sculpture was one of her areas of passion and expertise, and encouraged by her husband, the celebrated connoisseur Sir Robert (Bertie) Abdy Bt., she had a remarkable understanding of French 18th Century art and culture. At the Ferrers Gallery in Piccadilly Arcade, named after Bertie Abdy’s romantic home in Cornwall, she mounted exhibitions on artists such as Jacques-Émile Blanche, Alphonse Mucha, Jean-Jacques Tissot, Giovanni Boldini and Paul César Helleu.  

RELATED LITERATURE

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1911, pp. 108-109; P. Bellanger, Joseph-Charles Marin 1759-1834, exh. cat. Galerie Patrice Bellanger, Paris, 1992; J. D. Draper, French Terracottas, New York, 1992, pp. 44-47; J. D. Draper and G. Scherf, Playing with Fire. European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, exh. cat. Musée d📖u Louvre, Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 🎃and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, New York, 2003, pp. 61-63, no. 26