Greyish-white hard-paste porcelain, press-moulded and glazed
Greyish-white hardpaste porcelain, press-moulded in high relief, and coated on the front with glaze which appears brownish where it lies thickly. Rectangular; warped in firing so that the unglazed reverse is slightly convex. Ariadne reclines on a couch on the right under two trees with a curtain draped over their branches to form an awning. Further to the right is a dancing putto, and a woman kneeling with her back to the viewer, holding a shallow basket of flowers. Ariadne looks towards her, while holding out a fruit/flower to a putto who is climbing onto the end of the couch. Behind him another putto kneels supporting on his head a shallow basket of fruit. Behind him are two trees in low relief. Further to the left girl and boy move to the left, the latter blowing a long pipe towards three birds flying overhead. Below, a putto plays with a swan, and on the extreme left there is a seated putto and a standing putto beside a bearded herm of Bacchus bedecked with a garland of flowers.
Notes
History note: Sotheby’s, 14 November, 1924, lot 30; bought for £2.5.0 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge
The wax model for this relief, and another of a Bacchanale with Bacchus and Ariadne, are at the Doccia factory museum at Sesto Fiorentino.. One or other is probably ‘Un piccolo bassorilievo esprimente un Baccanale, con forme di cera’ in the factory’s late 18th century inventory of models. In Die Modellsammlung der Porzellan-manufaktur Doccia, Klaus Lankeit also noted a payment to Vincenzo Foggini in 1746 for a ‘bassorilievo di un baccanale’, which might also refer to one or other relief. Dr Jennifer Montagu pointed out that the Fitzwilliam’s relief was ultimately derived from he central part of a French engraving, Le Printems: L'hymen de Zephyr et de Flore by Jean Baptiste de Poilly (1669-1728) after the first of Pierre I Mignard (1612-95) cycle of four seasons painted in 1677 for the Galerie d'Apollon in the Chateau de Sait-Cloud.
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2022)
"Bacchanale with reclining Ariadne"
Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/140257 Accessed: 2022-05-19 06:06:40
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{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/140257|title=Bacchanale with reclining Ariadne|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2022-05-19 06:06:40|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}
