Little Bacchus

The Flemish sculptor's ties with Algardi are beyond dispute, since the latter was almost by right the official representative of the classicism that had found its most coherent statement and its official consecration in the Bolognese school of painting. His sensibility, however, was different, and Duquesnoy might perhaps be better understood in the company of Nicolas Poussin than in that of the Carracci or Domenichino. The subtle vibration of the surfaces and the delicate shimmer of the light grazing the skin, besides the expected Hellenistic matrix, seem even to suggest a Venetian component, perhaps mediated by Mariani's works in Rome.