Italy, probably Rome, late 16th/early 17th century

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Bust of Christ
bronze
height 9 7/8 in; 25 cm

chocolate brown patina beneath dark brown lacquer, on later circular, stepped ebonized wood socle

Provenance

Baroni Malfatti di Montetretto, Rome; Marcello and Carlo Sestieri, Rome; Oscar Bondy, Vienna, No. 1003 (label on underside of base); Sotheby's New York, November 25, 1986, lot 76; Heim Gallery, London

Catalogue Note

RELATED LITERATURE

Penny 1992, no. 134, pp.191-193; Scholten and Verber, 2005, no. 16, pp. 64-65

This model is known in other versions including one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (A81-1951), the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (5033), the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, previously attributed to Torrigiani (Penny 1992, op. cit., no. 134), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 40.14.2a). Several busts have the same wasted socle emblazoned with a putto as well as identical treatment of the hair, facial features and fabric, and have been variously ascribed to Guglielmo della Porta and Sebastiano Torrigiani. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam owns a bronze bust of Pope Gregory XIV attributed to Torrigiani, a pupil of della Porta, dated circa 1590-1591, which is cast with a very similar base (No. R.B.K. 16937).