Lot 398: A TERRACOTTA BUST OF JEAN BAPTISTE ROUSSEAU

A TERRACOTTA BUST OF JEAN BAPTISTE ROUSSEAU
AFTER JEAN-JACQUES CAFFIERI (1725-1792), LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY
Signed on the reverse of the left shoulder Caffieri, and with indistinct inscription, on a waisted circular socle
64 cm. high

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
S. Lami, Dictionaire des Sculpteurs de l'école Française au Dix-Huitième Siècle, Paris, 1910, pp. 160-161.
S. Hoog, Museé National du Château de Versailles, Les Sculptures, I - Le Museé, Paris, 1993, nos. 1523 and 1524, p. 327.

Christie’s charges a premium to the buyer on the Hammer Price of each lot sold at the following rates: 29.75% of the Hammer Price of each lot up to and including €20,000, plus 23.8% of the Hammer Price between €20,001 and €800.000, plus 14.28% of any amount in excess of €800.000. Buyer’s premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.
The original marble of this bust was executed by Caffieri for the Salon of 1787 and given in 1786 to the Comédie-Française, apparently as part of a complicated debt settlement. The bust was modelled after a painting of Rousseau by Jacques-André-Joseph Camelot Aved (1702-1766), executed in 1738 (S. Lami, loc. cit). A version in terracotta is in Versailles (no. MV 8142).
A virtual identical bust was sold, Karl Lagerfeld Collection, Christie's Monaco, 28-29 April 2000, lot 130.