Bronze Depicting Hebe, After a Sculpture by Claude Michel, known as Clodion (1738-1814)

The personification of youth, vitality, and vigor, the goddess Hebe’s attribute is the oinochoe containing the divine nectar that preserves the gods’ eternal youth. Usually, she is accompanied by an eagle—which seems to have been the case in Clodion’s original sculpture—but the bird is absent from our bronze. However, the elegant movement of the arms is preserved in the original, ensuring that the goddess is not mistaken for a bacchante. This same movement is found in Canova’s Hebe, sculpted in marble at the beginning of the 19th century and preserved in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and in the one painted by Carolus-Duran at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

Our bronze, freely inspired by Clodion’s, is doubly patinated in antique green and gold and is in perfect condition.