FRENCH SCULPTURE CENSUS / RÉPERTOIRE DE SCULPTURE FRANÇAISE CLODION, Claude MICHEL, called Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle 1738 - Paris 1814 Nymphes portant un plateau de fruits Nymphs Holding Aloft a Platter Charged with Fruit c. 1785-1793 plaster group 1 H. without base: 7 feet 5 ?2 in. Acc. No.: 1938-24-7 Credit Line: Gift of Eva Roberts Stotesbury in memory of Edward T. Stotesbury, 1938 Photo credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art © Artist : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art www.philamuseum.org Provenance Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, Whitemarsh Hall, Edward T. and Eva Stotesbury (Whitemarsh Hall was the Stotesbury's mansion built by architect Horace Trumbauer, 1916-1921, and demolished 1980). See archival document: Duveen Brothers Records, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Duveen Brothers stock documentation from the dealers’ library, 1829-1965, Series V. Collectors’ files, 1877-1956: Inventory of the contents of Whitemarsh hall, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. E.T. Stotesbury, Esq., August 1925, p. 9: West Palm Court, An Old French 18th century Stone group of 3 females holding up a large dish, on yellow and white marble base. [Could be this group or its companion piece 1938-24-6] 1938, Gift of Eva Roberts Stotesbury (1865-1946) in memory of Edward T. Stotesbury (1849-1938) Bibliography Museum's website, 11 March 2015 Comment Museum's website, 23 December 2014: This sculpture, its pendant group, and an identical pair of plaster groups now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, were made to occupy corner niches in the dining room at 44 Rue des Petites- Ecuries in Paris, a town house owned by the count de Botterel-Quintin. Additional information: Dean Walker, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 144: Until the mid-eighteenth century, French houses did not often have a room specifically designated for dining. After the 1770s, however, fashionable clients commissioned dining rooms with lavish decoration that sometimes included large sculptures. This group of nymphs, along with a pendant group in the Museum and an identical pair in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, was made for four corner niches in the dining room of the Parisian town house of the count of Botterel-Quintin at number 44, rue des Petites-Ecuries. The dining room was a masterpiece of its time. The painted ceiling was devoted to the four seasons, a theme loosely related to the fruits borne by these plaster nymphs. The details throughout the room were in the popular Neoclassical style. Clodion was the great master of creating sculptures that combined an antique flavor with a sense of movement and lightly erotic charm. The nymphs' dancing poses and apparently weightless burden make the viewer forget Clodion's sculptural prowess in realizing these graceful figures at nearly the scale of life..