Stone Sculpture Representing Two Putti And An Urn, Renaissance Period, 16th Century

Architectural fragment in carved stone depicting two naked putti arranged on either side of a large central urn decorated with leaves and moldings. The children are leaning on scrolls and foliage, in a perfectly symmetrical composition typical of Renaissance decorative art. This type of decoration, inspired by Antiquity and disseminated by Italian artists from the mid-16th century, adorned the facades, pediments, chimneys and fountains of stately and bourgeois homes. Cherubs, associated with abundance and fertility, were then an emblematic motif of the Renaissance repertoire, in France as in Italy. The stone, old and patinated, testifies to its exterior architectural use. Despite erosion and some losses, the whole retains great decorative force and a clear iconographic reading. wear of use