Italian, Florence, 17th century

Private collection, Northern Italy

The subjects of these animated equestrian groups can be identified by their affinities with Michelangelo’s famous seated marble statues of Giuliano de’ Medici and Lorenzo de’ Medici in the New Sacristy in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence.

Giuliano wears a classical cuirass decorated with lion heads on the shoulders. Lorenzo wears a helmet firmly secured with a chin strap. He raises his right arm aloft as he twists in the saddle looking upwards. The facture of the bronzes, with fine chasing in the armour and drapery, is consistent with Florentine 17th foundries, which matches their Florentine subject matter.

The lively composition of these casts suggests that they might have formed part of a larger narrative of bronzes, such as part of triumphal procession. Their style recalls bronzes attributed to Damiano Cappelli (d. 1688) whilst their seemingly being part of a larger ensemble evokes the work of the so-called Master of the Bull Hunt.

RELATED LITERATURE

J. Montagu, ‘The Master of the Bull Hunt: An Egima’, in J. Warren (ed.) Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in and around the Peter Marino Collection, London, 2013, pp. 96-113; A. Brook, ‘Tacca or Cappelli’, in J. Warren (ed.) Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in and around the Peter Marino Collection, London, 2013, pp. 114-139