Boy Playing the Flute Accompanied by a Dancing Girl

About this artwork

hoogte 24,5 cm x breedte 15,8 cm x diepte 9,2 cm

Art Historical Context

Jan Baptist Xavery’s charming terracotta group captures a lively moment of music and dance. Created around 1739, the small sculpture depicts a boy playing a flute while a girl twirls beside him, their figures animated with playful energy. Standing just under 25 centimeters tall, the work’s intimate scale invites close viewing of the delicate modeling. Xavery, a Flemish sculptor active in the Netherlands during the early eighteenth century, excelled in terracotta, a medium prized for its ability to record spontaneous gestures before being translated into more permanent materials like marble or...