Infant Bacchanal
Pieter Joseph Sauvage (Tournai 1744 - Tournai 1818)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1764 - 1800
Materials
Oil on panel (grisaille)
Measurements
533 x 914 mm (21 x 36 in)
Place of origin
France
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108909
Summary
Oil painting on panel (grisaille), Infant Bacchanal by Pieter Joseph Sauvage (Tournai 1744 - Tournai 1818). Infant bacchanal (cherubs) bearing an urn, a pendant to KED/P/237. Two naked winged cupids with circlets of flowers in their hair and hands, pull to the left, a wheeled cart on which sits a winged cupid, head turned to spectator, holding aloft a circlet of flowers; following on the far side of the cart, to the left, are two more cupids followed by a child fawn with small horns, blowing a trumpet; above this group are two flying cupids holding flowers in a swirl of ribbon-like cloths; above the cupid on the cart another flying cupid holds a long garland of flowers, two further cupids push the cart from behind and at the far right, behind them are two further cupids, one on the shoulders of the other, the one on top holding the end of the garland held by the cupid flying above. Sauvage spent most of his career in Paris, where he enjoyed great popularity, making a speciality of trompe l’oeil imitations of stone and marble reliefs, a miniaturisation of the ‘witjes’ made popular by Jakob de Wit.[witjes = De Wit gave his name (‘Witje’) to a kind of decorative painting in grisaille which gives the illusion of a marble relief and is meant to be set over a chimneypiece or a door.]
Provenance
Purchased by Nathaniel Curzon, 2nd Lord Scarsdale (1751-1837) in Germany, some years before he succeeded to the title and inherited Kedleston. He presented them in 1800 to his father, Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Lord Scarsdale (1726-1804); recorded in the Ante-Room in 1802; gifted to the National Trust in 1986 by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
Pieter Joseph Sauvage (Tournai 1744 - Tournai 1818), publisher