ROLAND, Philippe-Laurent

Pont-à-Marcq, Nord 1746 - Paris 1816

Le petit dormeur

Sleeping Boy

c. 1774

terracotta, painted white

bust

Dimensions (HxWxD): 23 ⁵⁄₈ x 13 in.

Acc. No.: 1990.206

Credit Line: Wrightsman Fund, 1990

Photo credit: www.metmuseum.org

© Artist:

New York, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

www.metmuseum.org

Provenance

• c. 1774, Made during Roland's sojourn in Italy (1770-1776)
• 1990, June 16, Monaco, Christie's, no. 141. as anonymous 18th c.; bought by MMA
• 1990, Wrightsman Fund

Bibliography

• 1991 Draper
  James David Draper, "French Terracottas", Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. XLIX, no. 3, 1991/1992 (Winter), p. 30-31, ill.
• 1992 Draper
  James David Draper, "Philippe-Laurent Roland in the Metropolitan Museum of Art", Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 27, 1992, p. 129-132, 146, ill.

Exhibitions

• 1783 Paris
  Salon, Paris, 1783, n° 270 (possibly)
  
  2003-2004 New York
  Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 28-April 25, 2004, catalogue by James David Draper, Guilhem Scherf, no. 24 (entry by James D. Draper)

Related works

• Marble (1774) in Gabriel de Montigny, Roland's descendant, collection (in 1901).
  Bronze in Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Comment

• Museum's website, October 18, 2012:
  Influenced by sleeping erotes and depictions of Thanatos of classical antiquity;decision to include the arms, of which one is exposed and the other truncated and draped, is a revival of Baroque usage. Also reminiscent of genre-studies such as Greuze's half-lengths.

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