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 insp...

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...