Friendship Surprised by Love

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Friendship Surprised by Love

Artist Jean-Jacques Caffiéri (French, 1725-1792)

Place of OriginFrance

Date1777

DimensionsH (with base): 20 in. (50.8 cm);
H (without base): 16 5/8 in. (42.2 cm)

MediumBronze with gilt-bronze plinth

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1971.160

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 26, Rotunda

Label TextJean-Jacques Caffiéri originally conceived this charming composition as a life-size marble for the gardens of Mme. du Barry—powerful mistress of King Louis XV—at Louveciennes. The plaster was shown at the Salon of 1773, but the marble was never carried out. This tabletop version was commissioned by Abbé Joseph-Marie Terray, an enlightened patron of contemporary sculpture in the 18th century. It is a companion piece to Cupid Vanquishing Pan (signifying “love conquers all”), now in the Wallace Collection, London. The allegorical subject of Friendship Surprised by Love was a popular one that suited contemporary tastes for the sentimental.Published ReferencesGuiffrey, J., Les Caffieri, Paris, 1877, pp. 212-215, 218, 220-221, 302-305, 500 (xerox of pertinent pages in documentary folder).

Lami, S., Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'Ecole Francaise au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1910, vol. I, p. 157.

"Public Art Museum Notes," Art Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, Spring 1973, p. 334.

"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 81, no. 1249, repr. p. 132.

"Museum Accessions," Antiques, vol. 104, no. 1, July 1973, p. 39, illus.

"Recent Accessions," Art Quarterly, vol. 36, nos. 1/2, 1973, p. 116, repr. p. 125.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 19, nos. 2 and 3, 1976, p. 70, repr.

Gaborit, Jean-René, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, 1714-1785, Paris, 1985, p. 61.

Radcliffe, Anthony, et al., Renaissance and Later Sculpture with Works of Art in Bronze, London, 1992, pp. 258-263, fig. 1.

Bailey, Colin B., "The Abbe Terray: An Enlightened Patron of Modern Sculpture," Burlington, vol. 135, no. 1079, Feb. 1993, pp. 127-128, nos. 44, 45, fig. 81.

Wenley, Robert, French Bronzes in the Wallace Collection, London, Wallace Collection, 2002, p. 86, fig. 68.

Bennett, Shelley M. and Carolyn Sargentson, eds., French Art of the Eighteenth Century at the Huntington, New Haven, Yale, 2008, p. 447, fig. 172.

Exhibition HistoryParis, Museé du Louvres; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, Bronzes français de la Renaissance au siècle des lumières, 2008-09, no. 126, pp. 452-3, repr. (col.), 2 views, Eng. ed. Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, no. 126, pp. 452-3, repr. (col.) 2 views.