Bacchant and Bacchante with a Cupid

The French sculptor Claude Michel, known as Clodion, created small terracotta figure groups that were in great demand as decorations for domestic interiors. Clodion favored lighthearted classical subjects such as nymphs, satyrs, and fauns. This sculpture depicts two followers of Bacchus, the ancient Roman god of wine, in a drunken, ecstatic ritual dance during which they have dropped their ceremonial tambourine and have knocked over a jug of wine. One figure holds a bunch of grapes, for which an amorino (“little love,” or cupid) reaches. Apart from the orgiastic subject matter, the most striking features of this work are the exquisitely modeled textures of flesh, drapery, and hair, and the technical complexity of the interlocking figures.

Clodion’s frivolous subject matter might suggest a date from the high Rococo period preceding the French Revolution, but in fact this sculpture was made in 1799. One of a number of technically superior works from this period, Clodion may have created it in an attempt to win back some of his former aristocratic patrons, who were returning to France after the Reign of Terror.