Vestal Virgin

This statuette had been attributed to Joseph-Charles Marin (1759-1834) and was thought to have been made in France c.1790-1810. However recently it has been suggested that it is unlikely to be French, and could have been produced by an artist in the circle of the Stuttgart sculptor (Johann) Valentin Sonnenschein (1749-1828), who fled to Zurich in 1775, where he worked at the porcelain factory there. In 1779 he went to Bern, where he spent the rest of his life. The V&A has two other teerracottas by him, inv. nos. A.19-1955 and A.6-1962. This statuette was perhaps a sketch model for the figure on a tomb, similar to the Virtue carrying an urn on the monument to Archduchess Maria Christina in the Augustinerkirche in Vienna by Antonio Canova.