Lot 84: A CARVED MARBLE FEMALE HERM BUST

BY JEAN RAON (c.1669-1719), CIRCA 1700
Depicted facing to dexter, wearing a headscarf and with entwined braids; signed to the underside of the base 'RAON'
17 in. (43 cm.) high

F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries - The Reign of Louis XIV, III, Oxford, 1987, IV, London, 1993.

Sir Philip Sassoon (1888-1939) was one of the most remarkable Englishmen of his day. A Member of Parliament from the age of
twenty-three, he also served as Private Secretary to General Haig (1915-19) and to Lloyd George (1920-22), Secretary of State for Air (from 1924) and Commissioner of Works (1937), as well as Chairman of The Trustees of the National Gallery and a Trustee of the Tate Gallery and the Wallace Collection. The fortune which he inherited in his twenties from his father and Rothschild grandparents also permitted him to deploy his considerable energies as a host, aviator and patron of the arts. He completely remodelled the two houses which he had inherited, 25 Park Lane, London, and Trent Park, Hertfordshire and built from scratch a third, Port Lympne, Kent, begun by Sir Herbert Baker in about 1912 and completed by Philip Tilden in 1918-21. It provided a suitable setting for the house parties that were held there and is now recognized as one of the great English country houses of the Century.

THE PROPERTY OF THE MARQUESS OF CHOLMONDELEY, HOUGHTON HALL, NORFOLK
(LOTS 84-96)

Jean Raon was the son of a Parisian stone-cutter who entered the Académie royale in 1665 at the surprisingly mature age of 35. Upon entering, however, his progress was rapid. He had a brief sojourn of three years in the Académie de France in Rome and on his return to Paris was immediately employed in the Bâtiments du Roi; he henceforth took on the positions of academician, professor and finally Conseiller Professeur in 1693.

Raon was held with high regard with the King and was thus often entrusted with task of overseeing the transport of the latter's sculptures. In this role he was known to have collected and then repaired new acquisitions, such as the plaster casts of Trajan's column from Rome in 1671. As a sculptor he worked feverishly conceiving a large number of variations of antique marbles for Versailles and also for the Dôme des Invalides where here created no less than 21 works in-the-round and in relief.

Raon, and later his son Jean-Melchior (1669-1719), also worked for private patrons, as the set of six busts of the Muses and two fauns in the Château de Thoiry (Souchal, op. cit., IV, figs. 47-52) and the four busts in an English private collection by the latter demonstrate (ibid., figs. 14-17). Stylistically identical, and differing only in the relief decoration to the sides of the truncation, the former series relates extremely closely to the present lot (illustrated in Souchal, op. cit, III, no. 46). All demonstrate a virtually identical attention to the physiognomy, which is to some extent classical and idealised, with sharply defined eyelids and incised pupils and similarly rendered hair braids. They are also all lively and expressive, and this is most obvious in the present lot where the young female sitter turns playfully to her dexter and reveals an unusually broad smile. This exaggerated expression highlights an interesting difference between the present lot and the those in the Thoiry series; while Souchal refers to her as representing a Female Satyr (ibid, III, no.46) it is more likely that with her slanted eyes, richly embroidered headdress and lace fringing she is, in fact, an idealised oriental woman. The depiction of such Orientalist themes at this time was certainly not unusual; rococo painters such as Carle Vanloo (1705-1765) painted opulent fantasies of harems and sultans, while Jean-Baptiste van Mour (1671-1737) who lived in Turkey during the 18th century provided a seemingly more authentic glimpse of the East.

In the conception of this bust, Raon is, in a distinct change of subject matter, effectively showing his versatility as a sculptor; having conceived classically-based themes for Versailles and religious ones for the Invalides, he has drawn inspiration from more contemporary and fashionable sources.

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