Images(4)

A Bacchante

Maker Joseph Charles Marin and workshop (French, 1759 - 1834)

Additional Title(s)

Erigone

Collections

Art Collectors' Council: 1995 - 2022

ClassificationsSCULPTURE

Dateca. 1785

Mediumterracotta

Dimensions16 3/4 x 5 1/2 x 6 in. (42.5 x 14 x 15.2 cm.)

DescriptionJoseph-Charles Marin's career spanned a turbulent period in French history, ranging from the ancien regime of Louis XV, through the French Revolution and to era of the July Monarchy. Although he attende classes at the French Royal Academy and worked with the goldsmith Jean-Edme Julliot, Marin's received his formative training in the studio of Clodion, the reknowned master of small-scale sculptural works. the detailed anatomical study he encountered at the Academy, and the experience of the minute finish of a jeweler - combined in Marin to produce works of art like the Bacchante. The Bacchante is an example of Marin's mastery of terracotta. Though Marin worked in a variety of mediums - bronze, marble, and plaster - his growing renown is based on his terra cottas. Terra cotta, an Italian term meaning "baked earth," describes a reddish-brown clay fired at low temperatures and left unglazed. It was originally used as a preparatory material, though in the eighteenth-century it became more accepted as a material for finished works of art. Unlike other media, terra cotta records "the fingerprints of the artist." Marin expresses the vivaciousness and spontaneity of the Bacchante, imprinting the sculpture with his every gesture. This piece dates from the opening of the crucial decade in Marin's career, the 1790s. Though Marin was not a member of the French Royal Academy of Art, with the French Revolution, academic membership was revoked as a criteria for participation in the annual Salon exhibitions, a boon for Marin's career. In the Salons of 1791, 1793, and 1795, he began to emerge as a sculptor with his own identity, no longer regarded as simply an "élève de Clodion." According to the Encyclopédie, bacchantes were female warriors who aided Bacchus in his conquest of the Indies. They were also priestesses who guarded the mysteries of this god who to celebrated and proclaimed Bacchus' success. With the acquisition of Marin's Bacchante, The Huntington will possess a collection of growing importance of late eighteenth-century terra cottas.

SignedIncised at the back: marin

InscribedIncised at the back: marin

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors' Council

Status

On view

Object number2003.6

Terms