Jean Joseph VINACHE (1696 1754)

Love stung by a bee Terracotta Group. (Restorations)
H. 62 cm Related literature:
Stanislas Lami, Dictionary of the Sculptors of the French School in the 18th century, Paris, 1911, t.2, P The subject of our important terracotta group, Love stung by a bee, is taken from Ode XL of the Theochrites and Anacreontic Odes: "Eros did not see a bee hidden in roses and he was stung with it.
He was stung by hand and began to cry.
And running, and flying to the white Kythéré, he said:
- Alas! I am dead, I am dead, my mother! I'm going to die!
Behold, a little winged snake has wounded me, of those whom the ploughmen call bees.
She said to him: - If a bee has done you such great harm, how much, Eros, do you think those you hurt suffer?"
Vinache treated the subject in the form of a sketch for the 1742 Salon. Undoubtedly our terracotta is the final version of this modello presented at the Salon.
Frightened Love extends its wounded hand to Venus, who lectured him by showing him one of the arrows with which he himself spread love and its corollary, suffering. Behind Love, a beautiful still life shows us an inverted basket containing hive combs. At the foot of Venus, a couple of doves are bound by a cordon end.
We can compare the morphotype and the almost identical position of our Cupid with that of the beautiful reception piece of the artist kept at the Louvre Museum: Hercules chained by Love.
Jean-Joseph Vinache is undoubtedly the son of the sculptor Joseph Vinache. After studying at the former Paris Academic School, he went to work in Germany and settled in Dresden. Back in Paris, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1736 and became an academician in 1741. He took part in the Salons de l'Académie from 1738 to 1747.