Follower of the Lombardo Family, North Italian, Probably Venetian, Early 16th Century

With Charles Ratton and Guy Ladrière, Paris;

Sotheby's New York, 25 January 2001, lot 45.

Inspired by the Antique, specifically Roman sculpture, this idealized image of a woman with an extravagantly carved coiffure, displays knowledge of the sculpture of the Lombardo family. Led by Pietro (1435-1515) but best known through the sculpture of his sons Antonio (1458-1516) and Tullio (1455-1532), this premier family of artists were active in the Venice from the latter part of the 15th century to the second quarter of the 16th century.

Their prominence influenced their contemporaries in the north of Italy, including Simone Bianco (active 1512-1553) whose profoundly classicizing style is evident in a bust of a woman in the Statens Museum für Kunst, Copenhagen.¹ The treatment of the complicated arrangement of the hair, the clear brow line and straight bridge of the nose, the full face and small, slightly parted lips are analogous to those details on the present relief.

¹A. Luchs, Tullio Lombardo and Ideal Portrait Sculpture in Renaissance Venice, 1490-1530, 1995, figs. 75, 103

RELATED LITERATURE:

I. Favaretto, "Simona Bianco: Un Scultore del XVI secolo di fronte all'antico," Numismatica e antichità classiche, Quaderni Ticinesi XIV, Lugano, 1985, p. 405,

A. Luchs, Tullio Lombardo and Ideal Portrait Sculpture in Renaissance Venice, 1490-1530, 1995.