Child with cage in the style of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle

Bronze with black patina representing a young child seated holding an empty bird cage in his hand. He is seated on an octagonal gilded bronze plinth.

French work around 1850-1860.

Pâris de Montmartel, godfather of Madame de Pompadour, commissioned Pigalle to paint a portrait of her only son, the future Marquis de Brunoy, who was one year old at the time. The marble was exhibited at the Salon in 1750 (Louvre Museum, inv. No. RF 654). In 1784, the artist created a counterpart to the model, l’Enfant à l’oiseau et à la pomme (Louvre Museum). Most likely during the 1780s, Pigalle made cast irons of these two children, alone or in pairs. The architect Soufflot owned a bronze sculpture of l’Enfant à la cage, which appeared in the sale of his collection on November 20, 1780 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).