Venus Having Beauty Crowned by the Graces
Sèvres Manufactory, after Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809) · 1775-1800
Venus sits at the left, half draped, and beckons to a young woman standing before her, while above the girl's head the three Graces hold a crown of flowers. Three winged cupids play at their feet. The whole group is biscuit, unglazed porcelain fired to a matt white that imitates marble, which is why the surface takes light so softly and every fold and curl reads clearly. Look at the composition from the side as well: the figures are arranged in a shallow pyramid on an oval base, which is incised with the letters LR. Beneath it is a fluted wooden base painted to look like grey veined marble.
Louis-Simon Boizot, a sculptor who exhibited at the Salon, directed the sculpture workshop at Sèvres from seventeen seventy-three and supplied the models for its most elegant biscuit groups, mythological and allegorical subjects in the neoclassical taste of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. Groups like this crowned the dessert table, replacing the sugar sculptures of earlier centuries. The Louvre acquired this one by pre-emption at auction at the Palais Galliera in Paris in March nineteen seventy-three.
Did You Know? Biscuit groups like this replaced the sugar sculptures that had once decorated royal dessert tables.
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