Les Trois Contents, Sèvres biscuit group, 1765

Length 28 cm, width 20 cm, height 21.5 cm

Incised F for Falconet

This group was modelled in 1765 from a scene in a 1763 play, Les Rivaux Heureux, which was very loosely inspired by La Fontaine’s Fable Les Deux Amis.

Falconet’s talent here is to have created a model that is perfectly in three dimensions.

 The F incised mark indicates that our example must be among the earliest produced, before Falconet left for Russia in September 1766. Only seven were sold in this early period, including one to the duc de Choiseul, one to Poirier, one to Madame Lair, one to the King for Bellevue, two for cash, plus one given as a present to Bertin.

(4315)

 £7,500

John Whitehead