Cleveland Museum of Art

Satyress and Child

Clodion

Date

1803

Medium

terracotta

Culture

France, early 19th Century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Born in Nancy to a family of artists, Clodion was one of the leading French sculptors of the ancien régime and Napoleonic era. He went to Paris to study sculpture in 1755 and worked in Rome from 1767 to 1771. Although inspired by the art of classical antiquity, as seen in the mythological subject of this terracotta relief, Clodion continued to model forms with a softness and delicacy reflective of his training during the Rococo period. An invention of European artists of the post-Roman period, a satyress is the female equivalent of the male satyr in classical antiquity. Part human and part goat or horse, the satyress can be recognized by her animal legs and hoofs.

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