Child Carrying Fruit and Flowers (mid-1700s–early 1800s): Art, History and Details

Child Carrying Fruit and Flowers (mid-1700s–early 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Clodion (French, 1738–1814).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

French sculptor Claude Michel, called Clodion, frequently depicts children in his sculpture, in this case a convincing toddler, from her pout to her plump toes. The piece is constructed in terracotta, a common medium for Clodion. After firing, the unglazed color of the clay can vary widely; each of Clodion's statues has a slightly different hue. The figure has sustained a number of damages, but has recently been cleaned and repaired.

Object facts

• Title: Child Carrying Fruit and Flowers
• Date: mid-1700s–early 1800s
• Creator attribution: Clodion (French, 1738–1814)
• Culture: France
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: terracotta
• Dimensions: Overall: 42.2 x 12.8 x 15.3 cm (16 5/8 x 5 1/16 x 6 in.); without base: 35.3 cm (13 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1944.131

Collection credit

The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection : Bequest of Elisabeth Severance Prentiss, 1944. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.
• Milliken, William. "French Furniture and Sculpture." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 31, no. 6 (June 1944): 91-92, 101.
• Ditner, David Charles. Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century European Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 1986.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.