Satyress and Child

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

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.