New York City’s Frick Collection recently opened an exhibition of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes from the collection of Janine and J. Tomilson Hill. Displayed are thirty-three statuettes, sculptures, and a relief by masters of the Italian, German, Dutch, and French schools of the late fifteenth into the eighteenth century. One highlight is a pair of bronzes titled Sleeping Hermaphrodite and Reclining Venus after terracotta models attributed to François Duquesnoy and Thibault Poissant commissioned by the celebrated seventeenth-century French sculptor François Girardon for his personal collection. An added pleasure for admirers of French decorative arts is that the gilded-wood couches supporting the bronzes are attributed to the versatile French designer Gilles-Marie Oppenord, Girardon’s neighbor at the Louvre. Oppenord did a series of drawings of Girardon’s sculpture collection, including these bronzes, in imaginary architectural settings, which were engraved and published by Nicolas Chevalier, c. 1709.
Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection * to June 15, 2014 * The Frick Collection, New York * frick.org