Male nude supporting a wreath on his head

The model was possibly intended as a furniture mount, serving, for example, in the manner of a telamon between two zones of a cabinet. The rather labored contrapposto suggests a late School of Fontainebleau origin. A variant with a bit of drapery falling over the figure’s shoulder was in the collection of Sir Ivor C. Proctor-Beauchamp.[1] The number 212 engraved on the back of the right lef of our bronze corresponds to the entry in the inventory of the French royal collections ordered by the National Assembly: “Une homme ayant les deux mains dur la tête, haut de huit puces et demi, modern, estimé cent vingt livres.”[2]

[James David Draper, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1984, pp. 168–69, no. 86]

Footnotes:
[1] Sale, Sotheby’s, London, June 10, 1969, no. 71.

[2] J. M. Bion, C. G. F. Christin, and F. P. Delattre, Inventaire des diamans de la Couronne…perles, pierreries, tableaux, pierres gravées, et autres conumens des arts et des sciences existans au Garde-Meuble, imprimé par ordre de l’Assemblée Nationale, II, Paris, 1791, p. 262, no. 212.