A Vestal

1770

Clodion

Artist, French, 1738 - 1814

Carved from cream-white marble, a woman stands next to a hip-high, three-legged table in this free-standing sculpture. Her weight rests on her left leg, her right knee bent. She wears a flower crown over a garment that covers her head and falls in sweeping, voluminous folds to her sandaled feet. An urn is tucked into her left elbow and she holds a saucer-like dish in her right hand down by her side to pour oil onto the flames on the altar below. She looks down toward the altar, which is decorated with a ram’s head and garlands.

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Known for playfully sensuous terracotta nymphs and satyrs, Clodion also portrayed more serious subjects from Classical myth and history. An ancient draped figure at the Uffizi in Florence, then known as a vestal, inspired him during a stay in Italy to make several statuettes of a priestess of the Roman hearth goddess Vesta, pouring out oil to feed the sacred fire. This example of the popular theme was carved in Rome, probably as a commission from Empress Catherine II (the Great) of Russia. The vestals took vows of virginity and withdrew from worldly life, but Clodion endowed this dignified young woman with soft flesh and carved the fine raised folds and clinging panels of drapery to appreciatively model her figure.
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 55

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    marble

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 95.5 x 42.1 x 35 cm (37 5/8 x 16 9/16 x 13 3/4 in.)
    gross weight: 88.451 kg (195 lb.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.99

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably Catherine II of Russia [1729-1796], Saint Petersburg; Prince Gregory Alexandrovich Potemkin; his grand niece, Darja Nikolajewna Lopouchina, Moscow; W.N. Isakoff, Kiev, before 1904 until probably 1923.[1] David David-Weill [1871-1952], Neuilly-sur-Seine, before 1925;[2] sold 1937 to (Wildenstein & Co., New York), until at least 1940.[3] purchased 1949 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] The early provenance is from Adrien Prachoff, "La Vestale, statue en marbre de Clodion, dans la collection de W.N. Isakoff," Khudozhestvennyia sokrovishcia Rossii [Les trésors d'art en Russie] 4, no. 2 (1904): 53-56, pls. 20-23. A sculpture that is probably the NGA marble is mentioned as being in an unnamed St. Petersburg private collection in E.F. Bange, Die Bildwerke in Bronze und in Anderen Metallen, Arbeiten in Perlmutter und Wachs Geschnittene Steine, vol. 2 of 4, Die Bildwerke des Deutschen Museums, Berlin and Leipzig, 1923: 46. Tracey Berg-Fulton, of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, kindly brought the 1923 reference to the Gallery's attention; see her e-mail of 21 January 2015, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] Gabriel Henrist, "La Collection David-Weill," L'Amour de l'Art, 1925: 14.
[3] "Sale of the David-Weill Collection," Art News 35 (27 February 1937): 12. The sculpture was exhibited by Wildenstein in 1940 as formerly part of the David-Weill collection.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1940

  • French XVIIIth Century Sculpture formerly of the David-Weill Collection, Wildenstein & Co., New York, April 1940, no. 37

1974

  • Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1974, unnumbered checklist.

2010

  • L'Antiquité rêvée. Innovations et résistances au XVIIIe siècle [Antiquity Revived. Neoclassical Art in the Eighteenth Century], Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2010-2011, not in French cat., no. 32 (English cat.), repro. (shown only in Houston).

Bibliography

1901

  • Benois, Alexandre, and Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov. Khudozestvennyia sokrovishcha Rossii--Les Trésors d'Art en Russie. 7 vols. Saint Petersburg, 1901-1907: 4(1904):53-56, pl. 20-23; 7(1907):206-207.

1910

  • Vöge, Wilhelm. Die Deutschen Bildwerke und die der anderen cisalpinen Länder. Berlin, 1910: 224.

  • Lami, Stanislas. Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'Ecole française au dix-huitième siècle. 2 vol. Paris, 1910-1911: 2 : 150.

1923

  • Bange, E.F. "Die Bildwerke in bronze und in anderen Metallen." In Demmler, Theodor, ed. Die Bildwerke des deutschen Museums. 4 vols. Berlin and Leipzig, 1923-1930: 2 (1923) : 46, n. 2751.

1925

  • Henriot, Gabriel. "La Collection David-Weill." L'Amour de l'Art (1925): 14, repro.

1951

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 258, no. 116, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 451, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 149.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 132, repro.

  • The French Bronze 1500-1800. Exh cat. M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1968: no. 71.

1974

  • Hodgkinson, Terence. "A Clodion Statuette in the National Gallery of Canada." Bulletin, The National Gallery of Canada 24 (1974): 13-21.

1976

  • Middeldorf, Ulrich. Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools XIV-XIX Century. London, 1976: 106.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 645, no. 1017, repro.

1992

  • Scherf, Guilhem. "Clodion en Italie: 1762-1771." Dossier de l'Art (avril-mai 1992): 6-9, repro.

  • Poulet, Anne L., and Gilhem Scherf. Clodion 1738-1814. Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1992: 26-7, fig. 7.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 47, repro.

1999

  • Norman Herz, Katherine A. Holbrow and Shelley G. Sturman. "Marble Sculture in the National Gallery of Art: a Provenance Study." In Max Schvoerer, ed. Archéomatériaux: marbres et autres roches: ASMOSIA IV, Bordeaux, France 9-13 october 1995: actes de la IVème Conférence international de l’Association pour l’étude des marbres et autres roches utilizes dans le passé. Talence, 1999: 101-110.

2000

  • Poulet, Anne, in Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel, eds. Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000: 250-251, under no. 127.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 65, fig. 92, 75, 246 (not in the exhibition).

Inscriptions

on base at back: CLODION. inv. fecit Romae. 1770

Wikidata ID

Q63809335

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