Psyché biscuit after Falconet

On a circular base, in blue porcelain and gold highlights, a biscuit statuette representing Psyche as a young girl hiding the arc of Love. This model is the counterpart of l'Amour menaçant or Love Threatening realised by Etienne-Maurice Falconet, commissioned by Madame de Pompadour and exhibited at the Salon in 1757.
The sketch in plaster of this Psyche was exhibited at the Salon in 1761. Unlike its counterpart, this model has never been done in marble, but only in Sevres porcelain (a model in soft paste is kept at the Musée National de Sevres) or in glazed earthenware (preserved in the Château de Fontainebleau).
On the pedestal, the couplet of Voltaire has been changed to:
Non, pas plus que tu n'es mon maître
Tu l'es, le fut ou le doit être

Bibliography:E. Bourgeois, Le biscuit de Sèvres au xviii° siècle, Paris, 1909, ed. Goupil, Tome ii, p 9

L. Réau, Etienne-Maurice Falconet, 1716-1791, Paris, ed. Etienne Demotte, p 183

Musée national de Céramique, Sèvres, 6 novembre 2001- 4 février 2002, Falconet à Sèvres, 1757-1766, ou l'art de plaire, p 162