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The statue is mounted on a pivot and is believed to be one of a group of two or four statues of divinities which served in one of the large decorative schemes at the Chateau d'Anet. Another statue of this group, the companion piece to ours and carried out in the same technique representing Uranian1, was also in the Eugène Kraemer collection, and in the Kraemer sale of June 2-5, 1913, it was described as coming from the Chateau d'Anet. Although the catalogue does not give details about this provenance, the reputation of the experts for this sale (MM. Mannheim, MM. Paulme et Lasquin fils) and the care with which the catalogue was prepared indicate that the experts must have had specific evidence for citing this Anet provenance. 

The evidence of the sculpture itself supports this contention. When the statue was resplendent in its original all-over gold-leaf, it must indeed have been a sumptuous decoration for a royal chateau. The pose and the material indicate that the Mercury served as a free-standing sculpture, perhaps out-of-doors. 

1-Now in a private collection in Paris.