Standing male angel holding drapery and standing over a ram; allegory of Spring; after bas-relief on Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons (Paris)

Art Historical Context

This delicate etching captures a graceful standing male angel, draped in flowing fabric and poised triumphantly over a ram,izing the allegory of Spring. Created anonymously by a French artist in the mid- to late 18th, it reproduces a bas-relief from Edme Bouchardon's iconic Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons Paris. Completed between 1739 and 1745, the fountain adorned the Rue de Grenelle with sculptural personifications of the seasons, blending classical mythology and natural symbolism in Bouchardon's refined neoclassical style—marked by elegant anatomy, soft modeling, and harmonious proportions inspired by antiquity. Etching, the print's medium, allowed for intricate line work and tonal subtlety on a trimmed sheet measuring 11 × 8 1/16 inches. This technique democratized access to Bouchardon's monumental public art, enabling collectors to own miniature versions of the fountain's narrative reliefs. The ram evokes Aries, heralding renewal and fertility, while the angel's poised form radiates vitality and seasonal rebirth—a nod to 18th-century French decorative arts' celebration of nature's cycles. Now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department (Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953), this print offers a window into Rococo-era opulence and Bouchardon's enduring influence on Parisian urban sculpture.

About the Artist

Anonymous, French, 18th century|Edme Bouchardon · 1700–1800

The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...