CIRCLE OF GERMAIN PILON (C.1525-1590), LATE 16TH/EARLY 17TH CENTURY, THE BASE, 19TH CENTURY

Germain Pilon (circa 1525-1590), the celebrated French Renaissance sculptor was known for his tomb carvings, although he was able to imbue some of these serious and somber sculptural programs with a sense of liveliness, youthfulness and even humor. The most well-known and well-documented examples of this, perhaps, are the eight génies funéraires or figures de fortune ordered for the tomb of François 1er in 1558. Under the direction of Primaticcio, both Pilon and Ponce Jacquiot, provided these figures of young boys, three of which were later incorporated into the tomb of François II at Saint Denis and a fourth is now at Écouen (Cl. 19259). These have all been discussed in a 1990 colloquium: Germain Pilon et les sculpteurs français de la Renaissance, which was later edited by G. Bresc-Bautier and published Paris, 1993 (plates I and II and figs. 20-24).

Other strikingly similar reclining figures of children were provided by Pilon or his studio and followers for the tombs of Valentine Balbiani, now in the Louvre (N 15128-15129), and a pair of figures seen in Mariette’s engraving for the tomb of Claude-Catherine de Clermont, duchesse de Retz (Ibid. plates XXIX and XXX).

The present sculpture with its multiple attributes, is clearly secular in nature but it exhibits the charm and irreverence of the above sculptures and also, with its characteristically deeply-carved curls and Mannerist physical characteristics, represents this highly original moment of the Northern Renaissance of which Pilon was one of the champions.