Faun Playing the Flute, called the Shepherd with a Flute
Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) · 1707-1709
A young shepherd sits on a rock and lifts a flute to his lips, his body twisted slightly as if he has just settled down to play. The museum calls him a faun, but there is nothing wild about him: he is a graceful, pensive figure of the kind the aging Coysevox made for the last decorations of Marly. Notice the animal pelt that serves as his cushion, the relaxed hands on the instrument and the smooth finish of the skin against the rougher rock. He was meant to be seen among trees beside water, his music answering the sound of the cascades.
The royal building office commissioned the figure in 1707 together with Coysevox's Hamadryad and a set of hunters and nymphs by Nicolas Coustou, all destined for the half-moon at the lower end of the Rivière at Marly. Plaster models were ready the same year, payments ran from 1708 to 1710, and the sculptor signed the back of the base A. Coyzevox F. 1709. Within a few years the group had left Marly for the terrace of the Tuileries palace, where it was placed in 1716 and 1717. It entered the Louvre in 1972.
Did You Know? Only seven years after it was carved for Marly, the flute player was already on the terrace of the Tuileries in Paris.
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