These two charming figures of young girls belong to a group of terracottas often ascribed to and certainly inspired by Clodion. The figure on the left, Pomona, relates to Clodion's other standing female figures of the 1780s, which feature draperies pulled aside to reveal the body, all of which derive from the Hellenistic marble figure of the Callipygian Venus. An identical terracotta to the Pomona, on the left side of the image of the present lot, is in the Musée des Ursulines, Mâcon catalogued as “manner of Clodion” (cf. Poulet and Scherf, no. 77) and in which the inscription, also on the tree trunk, includes the sculptor’s signature, but with the 'N' reversed (which is not uncommon in Clodion's terracottas). The Metropolitan Museum of Art also has an example of this model, catalogued as  “probably after a model of the 1780s” (acc. No. 17.120.7). Furthermore, the model has been published (cast) in bronze by the Barbadienne foundry in 1876 under the title of L'Innocence and it was ꦗalso edited by the Susse Frères fou🃏ndry in the later 19th century. 

Numerous examples of Pomona are noted in late 19th and early 20th century sale 🅷catalogues and literature, and the ‘Clodionmania’ of the second half of the nineteenth century was manifested by the circulation of pastich🌜es, counterfeits and casts.

The second terracotta figure in this lot, also skillfully modeled, is also a part of the gr🐷oup statuettes made in the manner of Clodion; here the young girl is bearing fruit in a tunic raised above the waist.🍨 

RELATED LITERATURE

L. Poulet and G. Scherf, Clodion 1738-1814, exhibition catalogue, 1992,𒊎 p. 310, 363-365, no. 77, p. 4꧒29