Workshop of Antonio Susini or Giovan Francesco Susini

These charming bronze groups representing a variety of animals combine an all’antica spirit with close observation of the natural world. No doubt intended for a collectors’ cabinet, their subjects allude to the theme of hunting, which preoccupied the Florentine elite around 1600. Led by commissions from the Medici, exotic animals and scenes of hunting appear frequently in the works of Tuscan sculptors of the late 16th and 17th centuries. Citing their impeccable casting, Sandro Bellesi (op. cit.) has attributed the present bronzes to the late career of Antonio Susini, who cast various bronzes of animals after the antique. The Bull with Dogs, Wild Boar with dogs and Two Bears with a Dog were reproduced in a larger size by the Manifattura di Doccia from the 1740s. In his discussion of the Doccia porcelains, Alessandro Biancalana (op. cit.) gives the bronze groups to Giovan Francesco Susini, Antonio’s nephew, who inherited his workshop.

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Biancalana, Porcellane e maioliche a Doccia. La fabbrica dei Marchesi Ginori. I primi cento anni, Florence, 2009, p. 88

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