The Intoxication of Wine. Artist: Clodion (Claude Michel) (French, Nancy 1738-1814 Paris). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: Overall (confirmed): H. 23 x W. 16 7/8 x D. 11 1/4 in. (58.4 x 42.9 x 28.6 cm). Date: ca. 1780-90.Clodion, whose career spanned the last decades of the ancien régime through the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign, embraced his era's taste for antiquity. Sometimes this preference is more apparent in his choice of theme than in his style. While often Neoclassical, his manner at times remained quite Rococo, as in the present example. Although Clodion received a number of important commissions for monumental marble sculptures, his fame and popularity rested on his skill at modeling small-scale terracotta groups for private collectors. The seeming spontaneity of this composition, a rapturous embrace, in which it appears that the senses are totally abandoned, was achieved only after much meditation. This work is one of the most minutely studied of all the Bacchic