Antique parcel-gilt and bronze group of dancers by Levêque

This impressive bronze sculpture combines patination and gilding to create a figurative study of remarkable likeness.

The bronze is cast as two bacchic revellers (known as ‘maenads’), who begin a dance of frenzied revelry inspired by the god. The righthand woman bangs a pair of cymbals above her head, whilst she looks upwards towards the sky with an ecstatic expression. The second figure instead looks downwards at the small putto who clutches at her dress. The figures perch atop a wooden tree stump.

The group is replete with references to the Roman god: the women wear laurel crowns atop their flowing hair, and their bodies are draped with floral garlands. The robes draped across the figures are wonderfully gilded to show the folds in the fabric, and a lionskin peeks out from between them. At their feet are further Bacchic referents, with a pan flute and bunches of grapes to indicate his role as the god of music and wine. The composition sits on a shallow circular stepped plinth.

The sculpture is signed to the base by the French sculptor Edmond Levêque (1814-1875): ‘E. Levêque’.

This sculpture is a superb Neoclassical bronze, a style which dominated France in the 19^th century.