Clare Le Corbeiller

Robert-Joseph Auguste, Silversmith ... and Sculptor?

HE ACQUISITION of two terracotta groups by the Metropolitan Museum in 1993 raises some intriguing questions as to the role played by eighteenth-century Parisian silversmiths in the creation of silver sculpture. Each group is composed of two children seated amid piles of game or vegetables and crustacea.1 In one (Figures 1, 2) they are tussling on a mound of dead birds and game: one child grabs at a bird held in the others arm, and that child pulls the others hair. In the second group (Figure 3) two children lounge on a bed of asparagus, lettuce, celery, and mushrooms from which emerge a lobster and a crayfish. One child clasps a large bunch of artichoke stalks, the other holds a cluster of leafy stems in the folds of his drapery. Each composition is set on a lightly ridged, rocky base resting on a smooth plinth. Clearly en suite, the groups are different only in the shape of their bases: the first is oval, the second circular. This circumstance, taken together with the specific and highly detailed modeling of comestibles, led to the thought that they must have been models for the covers of silver tureens.HE ACQUISITION of two terracotta groups by the Metropolitan Museum in 1993 raises some intriguing questions as to the role played by eighteenth-century Parisian silversmiths in the creation of silver sculpture. Each group is composed of two children seated amid piles of game or vegetables and crustacea.1 In one (Figures 1, 2) they are tussling on a mound of dead birds and game: one child grabs at a bird held in the others arm, and that child pulls the others hair. In the second group (Figure 3) two children lounge on a bed of asparagus, lettuce, celery, and mushrooms from which emerge a lobster and a crayfish. One child clasps a large bunch of artichoke stalks, the other holds a cluster of leafy stems in the folds of his drapery. Each composition is set on a lightly ridged, rocky base resting on a smooth plinth. Clearly en suite, the groups are different only in the shape of their bases: the first is oval, the second circular. This circumstance, taken together with the specific and highly detailed modeling of comestibles, led to the thought that they must have been models for the covers of silver tureens.

The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Addenda to the Catalogue

lHE PUBLICATION OF The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art coincided with the opening of the Linsky galleries in the Metropolitan Museum in 1984. The scholarly catalogue, like the installation, embraced 373 works of art and represented the Museums effort to reveal the magnitude of the Linsky gift in a fitting manner. In 1985, Mrs. Linsky relinquished her life interest in a further fourteen objects, which had been listed, without illustration, in an appendix to the catalogue (page 361). On the arrival of these works in the Museum, it struck the curators concerned that it would be the greatest pity if they were not accorded the same attention as the pieces previously catalogued. Fortunately, the Metropolitan Museum Journals format proved flexible enough to allow the description of the additional objects to be included here as a sequel to the 1984 catalogue. As far as is practicable, the entries follow the style and arrangement of that publication.

A Pair of Sphinxes in the Linsky Collection Reattributed

WHEN THE CATALOGUE of the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection was published in 1984, a pair of hardpaste porcelain sphinxes (Figures 1, 2) was somewhat hesitantly attributed to a German factory, possibly that at Fulda, which was in operation from 1764 to 1788.1 The chief justification for this attribution was the record of an identical pair in the Ostermann collection in 1928; that pair was marked-like each of the Linsky sphinxes-with a blue-painted cross such as that used at Fulda, and was assigned to Fulda in the sale catalogue.2 However, potential objections to such an attribution for the Linsky pair were seen in a pronounced dullness of paste and glaze and in the fact that the mark was applied over rather than under the glaze, contrary to Fuldas usual practice. It has since been brought to my attention that the Ostermann sphinxes-now on loan to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich-have been reexamined, and that as a result they have been reattributed to William Cookworthys Bristol factory.3WHEN THE CATALOGUE of the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection was published in 1984, a pair of hardpaste porcelain sphinxes (Figures 1, 2) was somewhat hesitantly attributed to a German factory, possibly that at Fulda, which was in operation from 1764 to 1788.1 The chief justification for this attribution was the record of an identical pair in the Ostermann collection in 1928; that pair was marked-like each of the Linsky sphinxes-with a blue-painted cross such as that used at Fulda, and was assigned to Fulda in the sale catalogue.2 However, potential objections to such an attribution for the Linsky pair were seen in a pronounced dullness of paste and glaze and in the fact that the mark was applied over rather than under the glaze, contrary to Fuldas usual practice. It has since been brought to my attention that the Ostermann sphinxes-now on loan to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich-have been reexamined, and that as a result they have been reattributed to William Cookworthys Bristol factory.3