Juno with an Eagle representing Air from a Set of Elements: C.3049-1928

Titles

Juno with an Eagle representing Air from a Set of Elements

Maker(s)

Factory: Bow Porcelain Manufactory
Modeller: 'The Muses Modeller'
Sculptor: Le Hongre, Étienne (After)

Entities

• Figure

Categories

• Porcelain
• Soft-paste porcelain

Description

Soft-paste porcelain figure of Juno with an Eagle, representing Air, and decorated in polychrome enamels.

Soft-paste porcelain containing bone ash, moulded, and painted overglaze in green, yellow, flesh-pink, red, mauve, pale greyish-purple, pinkish-brown, brown, and black enamels. The underside is unglazed and has a small ventilation hole near the back. The figure stands on a wavy-edged low mound with a rock rising up at the back which is pierced by a square hole for an attachment. The front is decorated with two applied red flowers with yellow centres and three leaves, one large red and pink flower with four leaves, and one red pink and yellow flower with a red centre and three leaves. Air stands with her feet slightly apart holding a drape behind her in her left raised hand and her lowered right hand. She wears a loose-fitting yellow dress with a greyish-purple lining, and a white flowered petticoat. Her long brown hair flows out behind her and her features are boldly delineated.
The eagle stands on her left on one leg with its wings slightly outstretched and its head turned towards her.

Notes

History note: Purchased in London from Mr Stoner (Frank?) on 25 November 1918 for £20 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher.

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest

Place(s) associated

• Stratford-le-Bow ⪼ Essex ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

18th Century, Mid#
George II
George III
Production date: circa AD 1760

Note

The Bow Elements were derived ultimately from the statues of the Elements forming part of Le Brun's Grande Commande of 1774 in the garden at Versailles. Air was after the statue by Etienne Le Hongre (1628-90) at the Fontaine du Soir or Cabinet des Combat d'Animaux. The intermediate source may have been pls. 95-8 in Thomassin's Receuil (see Documentation) or reduced size bronzes, such as those of Water and Air in the Green Vaults in Dresden which belonged to Augustus the Strong, and of which other examples are known. The bronzes seem more likely because both the bronze and porcelain figures of Water are Neptune's, whereas Le Brun's design, the statue and the engraving after it are female. The statue of Fire, also female, has been transformed into a youth, perhaps Vulcan. Air conforms to the pose of the original and the bronze, rather than to pl. 95 in the Receuil which is in reverse. This suggests that like so many other English figures of this period, Meissen models were their direct prototypes.

School or Style

Rococo