Jean-Guillaume MOITTE (1746-1810) - Lot 115

Jean-Guillaume MOITTE (1746-1810) "Caryatids Pair of terracotta sketches Height Height : 33 cm (dusting, small chips) Related works : -Jean-Guillaume Moitte, Trois cariatides, pen and brown ink drawing, brown and gray wash, white gouache highlights, H. 42 x 29 cm, Vivenel donation, Musée de Compiègne, inv. V. 182 ; - Jean-Guillaume Moitte, Réponse de Louis XVI à Lafayette, pen drawing, black ink and gray wash, H.38 cm, circa 1790, musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille, n°inv.1570 ; - Jean-Guillaume Moitte, Dessin pour un grand candélabre à cinq lumières, pencil, black ink and wash, 53.8 x 37 cm, stamped Collection JBC ODIOT n°416, provenance Henry Auguste, collection Odiot, Sotheby's Monte Carlo, sale November 26, 1979, lot 642; -Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Frontispiece de l'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'Art, des moeurs et de la législation, HL Perroneau, Paris, 1804. Related literature: -Gisela Gramaccini, Jean-Guillaume Moitte, Leben und Werk, Akademi Verlag GMbh, Berlin, 1993 vol I and II ; - Ss dir. Guilhem Scherf, Clodion et la sculpture française de la fin du XVIIIème siècle, Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre les 20 et 21 mars 1992, Paris, La Documentation française, 1993, Daniel Rabreau, La Sculpture considérée sous le rapport de l'architecture selon Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, pp.449- 484 ; -Ss dir. James David Draper and Guilhem Scherf, L'esprit créateur de Pigalle à Canova. Terres cuites européennes 1740-1840, catalog of the exhibition held at the Musée du Louvre from September 19, 2003 to January 5, 2004, RMN, 2003, cat.62 p.159-161. Jean-Guillaume Moitte was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle and Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne. He won the Premier Prix de sculpture in 1768 and spent three years in Rome between 1771 and 1773. On his return to Paris, the sculptor provided numerous designs for the royal goldsmith of Louis XV and Louis XVI, Robert-Joseph Auguste. Although he was only ever "agréé" at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1783, he was commissioned to create one of the Great Men of France for the Grande Galerie of the Louvre (Dominique Cassini). He also worked extensively as a decorator for Parisian buildings, notably the Aile Lemercier in the Palais du Louvre and the Hôtel de Salm, now the Musée de la Légion d'Honneur. These two charming sketches of terracotta caryatids reveal his fluid, precise technique, representative of French neoclassicism. Expert : Cabinet Sculpture et collection