72. After Guillaume Coustou (1677-1746) Terracotta group representing the Allegory of the River Tiber France, second half 18th century Groupe en terre cuite représentant l'Allégorie du fleuve Tibre France, deuxième moitié du 18e siècle Reposant sur un socle en bois doré Terracotta groep die de Allegorie van de rivier de Tiber voorstelt Frankrijk, tweede helft 18e eeuw Rustend op een vergulde houten sokkel Terracotta group representing the Allegory of the River Tiber France, second half 18th century Resting on a gilded wooden base 25 x 45 x 22 cm (17 1/2 in wide, 8 1/2 in deep, 9 1/2 in high) Base: 6 x 48,2 x 25,5 cm (18 1/2 in wide, 9 1/2 in deep, 2 in high) Provenance Sale: Rops, Namur, 11 juillet 2022, lot 7952 Private collection, Belgium acquired from the above This terracotta figure represents one of the most important rivers of the ancient world, the Tiber, personified by a reclining bearded man, leaning against a cornucopia filled with fruit and ears of corn and accompanied by a she-wolf This terracotta of the River God is a reduction of a famous monumental ancient marble found in 1512, and sculpted in Hadrian's time (117-138) as a counterpart to the Nile. These much-admired marbles were included in the Roman antiquities ceded to Napoleon in 1803, to be displayed in the Salle des Fleuves in the Musée Central des Arts in Paris In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, there was a real craze for bronze, marble and terracotta reductions based on Antiquities Comparatives literatures F. Haskell and N. Penny, For the love of the antique, the Greco-Roman statuary and the European taste, Hachette, Paris, 1988. F. Souchal, The French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries. The reign of Louis XIV, Oxford, Cassirer ed. 1977. J. Warren, Beauty and Power. Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Peter Marino collection, Wallace Collection, London, Wallace Collection, 2010, pp. 166-172 Isabelle d'Amécourt Expert - Membre SFEP [email protected]