Manche school of the last third of the 16th century: "Pastor - Lot 69

Manche school of the last third of the 16th century: "Pastoral and nativity of Christ", bas relief in terracotta in a moulded and painted wooden frame decorated with fluted pilasters, friezes with vegetal motifs, putti musicians facing each other and coats of arms (dusting, wear, restoration of the upper half of the relief, small accidents) 39x49 cm without the frame. Experts: LACROIX JEANNEST. Provenance: Villa Augier built in 1926 by Robert Mallet Stevens. Related literature: Ss. dir. G. Bresc-Bautier and F. Le Boeuf, Belles et inconnues. Sculptures en terre cuite des ateliers du Maine XVIème-XVIIèmesiècles, Étude iconographique, catalog of the Exhibition held in Paris in 2002, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002. Related works: -École mancelle, Nativity, terracotta bas-relief, 160 x 125 cm, Saint-Martin de Tassilé church, Sarthe; -École mancelle, The Adoration of the Shepherds, terracotta, altarpiece from the Château de la Rochère, Mulsanne (Sarthe), Le Mans, Musée de Tessé. This terracotta bas-relief is a precious and early example of the terracotta production that the workshops of the Maine region (today's Sarthe) specialized in from the third third of the 16th century. Inspired by the Gospel of Saint Luke, the scene represents a Nativity, with in the foreground, the infant Jesus lying on a bale of straw, flanked by his two parents accompanied by the donkey and the ox and an adoring angel. The crib is evoked by a wall pierced by a semicircular bay that opens onto the scene of the announcement to the shepherds in the background. From another bay on the dexter side emerge two shepherds, one of whom is playing a goat. As Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and François Leboeuf point out in their book on Le Mans terracotta, this iconography of the Nativity with the presence of shepherd musicians reflects the Christmas festival and the pastorals played and sung on this occasion. The shepherd with the goat is a detail already present in the relief preserved in the church of Saint-Martin-de-Tassillé, as well as the kneeling Virgin with the identical headdress and the twirling ribbon. However, our work could have been made by the workshop that executed the altarpiece from the Château de la Rochère in Mulsanne in the Sarthe region (now kept in the Musée de Tessé in Le Mans). This workshop used the same models for the kneeling position of Joseph, the drapery of the Virgin's dress, the crib and the baby Jesus. Finally, the similarities between the face of our Joseph and that of the shepherd behind the carpenter are striking.