19th Century Bronze with a greenish brown patina, representing a child surprised by the pinching of a crayfish. Tears are running down the cheeks of the naked child, sitting on a large conch shell, as he has just been pinched by a lobster.  This bronze is after the original model by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle he was a great French sculptor born in Paris in 1714. At a very young age, he studied sculpture and became aware that his art was the meaning of his life. He decided to go to Italy in 1734 to perfect his technique. He then joined the Beaux-Arts, thanks to his work "Mercure attachant sa talonnière" (1740) which was an immediate success. Several artists owned a copy, painters represented it on their canvases, and a reduction in Bisquewas produced by the Sèvres factory in 1770. Very quickly, orders multiplied and Mme de Pompadour took him under her wing. Juggling between the baroque and the classical, he made portraits of Diderot and Voltaire and then produced the famous funeral monuments for the Maréchal de Saxe (Strasbourg, 1776). He died in Paris in 1785, leaving a remarkable body of work in his wake.
19th century unsigned
Circa: 1850
Dim:  18 1/2 x 15" x 11"
Condition report : good condition. The lobsters antennas are not original and have been replaced later.