Lot 464: AFTER FRANÇOIS DU QUESNOY

TWO ANGELS PLAYING MUSIC

height without frame 33 in.; width without frame 27 1/4 in.; 83.8 cm, 69.2 cm

terracotta relief

late 18th/19th century

Heim Summer 1978, no. 32; Washington, New York, Cambridge 1979-1982, no. 19 (illus.)

Nava Cellini 1977, no. 329, pp. 26-38; Boudon-Machuel 2005, OE.43 dér. 2, p. 253 (illus.)

Cardinal Imperiali (?)

RELATED LITERATURE

Schlegel 1978


The present large relief with the charming subject of music-playing putti is a copy of the left-hand portion of Duquesnoy's successful marble relief of the Concert of angels playing music above the altar of the Filomarino chapel in SS. Apostoli, Naples (1640-1642).

Although this relief was previously considered to be a preparatory model for the altar, Boudon-Machuel (op. cit., p. 253) examines several details such as the coarser wings and deliberate modelling which seem to indicate that it was made after the marble. A small relief in wax, formerly in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin was also previously regarded as an original sketch model for the left-hand part of the Filomarino relief. However, Schlegel (op. cit. no. 8) later suggested that the wax was a study model made from the marble in the 18th century.