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Lot Essay
This imposing depiction of a bullfight in Siena’s Piazza del Campo is an autograph variant of the slightly larger picture (140 x 205 cm.) that is recorded in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale, Florence, in the seventeenth century and is now in the collection of the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Palazzo Salimbeni, Siena (see M. Ciampolini, Pittori senesi del Seicento, II, Poggibonsi, 2011, p. 712, Inv. 3167). Ciampolini notes (op. cit., p. 704) that the Siena picture and its pendant Sfilata delle contrade (Inv. 3166) were painted in circa 1582 to mark the publication of Cecchino Cartaio’s contemporary account of the festa in Piazza del Campo on 15 August 1546.
Rustici was the son of Lorenzo Rustici (1521-1573) who trained with Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Il Sodoma, and was known principally as a stuccoist and painter of grotesques. Details of Vincenzo’s life and work are scarce, though he is known to have entered the studio of his brother-in-law Alessandro Casolani following his sister’s marriage to the painter in 1582.
We are grateful to Dr Marco Ciampolini for his thoughts on the picture.
Rustici was the son of Lorenzo Rustici (1521-1573) who trained with Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Il Sodoma, and was known principally as a stuccoist and painter of grotesques. Details of Vincenzo’s life and work are scarce, though he is known to have entered the studio of his brother-in-law Alessandro Casolani following his sister’s marriage to the painter in 1582.
We are grateful to Dr Marco Ciampolini for his thoughts on the picture.