Lot 494: AFTER GASPARD MARSY AND BALTHAZAR MARSY 1624 - 1681 AND 1628-1674

LATONA AND HER CHILDREN

height 18 7/8 in.; 47.9 cm

bronze

<P>after 1671</P>

Heim Winter 1968, no. 48; Heim Summer 1977 no. 21

Düsseldorf 1971, no.348, pl.207

Françoise de Lastic (née Gouin); Marquis George de Lastic, Paris; Heim Gallery, London

RELATED LITERATURE

Souchal 1977, vol. III, p. 47, 19b; Hedin 1983

Gaspard Marsy was received at the Academy in Paris in 1657, and his brother Balthazar entered in 1673. Appointed sculpteurs du Roi, they worked at Versailles and from 1668 to 1670 and the brothers were entrusted with the carving of the marble group of Latona and her children for the Bassin de Latone. A. Félibien described the fountain in Rélations de la Feste de Versailles in July 18, 1668, and the engravings of P. Lepautre (1678) and Pérelle (before 1687) show the fountain in place. Bronze reductions of this popular marble group were known in the 18 (th) century and were often paired with figures of Flora or Andromeda; a pair of bronzes of Latona and Flora from the Selle Collection were sold at auction February 19, 1761, no. 74).

In Ovid's story of Latona, or in Greek Léto, and Jupiter, parents of twins Apollo and Diana, Latona turned Lycian peasants into frogs after the twins were prevented from drinking water from their lake.