The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 27, 2023

Satyress and Child

1803

Clodion

(French, 1738–1814)

France, early 19th Century

Terracotta

Diameter: 30.7 cm (12 1/16 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King 1963.251

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

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.

Description

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.

Inscriptions

Inscription

inscribed recto lower right: CLODION; inscribed verso: A/L'ami Jean/Souvenir offert/ en mai/ 1803.

Provenance
Henri B.-Lasquin (sold, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 4-6, 1919, lot. 240
Private collection, (sold, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, December 5, 1929, lot 25
Blumka Gallery (New York, New York), by exchange for 1915.387, 1915.72, and 1915.74 (all originally gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph E. King) , to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Citations
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 157 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 157 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 188 archive.org
Ditner, David Charles. Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century European Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 1986. Reproduced: p. 224
Exhibition history

Year in Review (1963). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 27, 1963-January 5, 1964).

Neo-classicism: Style and Motif. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).

The Persistence of Classicism in Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1988-January 15, 1989).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.251