Lot 65: - Laurent Delvaux (1696-1778) Flemish, Nivelles, circa 1740-1770 , sleeping child white marble

signed: L. Delvaux white marble

measurements note 11 by 35 by 23cm., 4¼ by 13¾ by 9in.

A. Jacobs, Laurent Delvaux, Paris, 1999, no. S 286, pp. 485-7

This marble group of a sleeping child is published in Alain Jacobs monograph on Laurent Delvaux as location unknown. It belongs to a series of sleeping children of which there are five versions. Some of these children repose on a mattress, whilst others, as in the present version, seem to recline in the open air. The attributes of corn and sickle may transform them into allegories of summer. Closest to the present version is the marble in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, which came from the collection of the Delvaux family. That child rests his head on two sheafs of corn and holds a sickle in his right hand, and is signed in the same way.