Nymph with a Shell

The bronze Nymph with a Shell is a sensitively-cast reduction of one of sculptor Antoine Coysevox’s most celebrated large-scale marbles, itself based on a famous ancient prototype. The bronze shows a nymph leaning on her left hand and holding a shell in her right. She looks down, meditative and focused; a gauzy tunic leaves her left shoulder and breast exposed. The mood is serene. There are two urns beside her, from which flowing water and viscous draperies coalesce. She rests on a piece of earth dotted with shells and marine life atop a rectangle base that contains subtle suggestions of rippling waves.

The Lyon-born Coysevox (1640-1724) was one of the key sculptors active at the court at Versailles during Louis XIV’s reign. In 1683, Louis XIV commissioned Coysevox to make a marble version of the celebrated Borghese Nymph with a Shell, an ancient Roman marble rediscovered during the Renaissance and documented in the Borghese collection by 1638. Coysevox’s marble version was installed in the gardens of Versailles until 1891, when it was taken to the Louvre and replaced by a copy. Despite the fame of Coysevox’s marble, the composition is relatively rare in small-scale bronze.