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Lot Essay
Although reversed in pose, this figure is a variant of Michelangelo's David of 1501-02 for the Piazza Signoria, Florence. Two other identical figures, one in the Kress Collection, National Gallery, Washington D.C., and another in the Michael Hall Collection, New York, have been proposed along with the present bronze as attributed to the Mannerist sculptor and follower of Michelangelo, Vicenzo Danti. Pope-Hennesey was the first to suggest this attribution, based largely on similarities with two of Danti's works, Honor Triumphant Over Falsehood and Cosimo I de'Medici (see J. Pope-Hennessy, Renaissance Bronzes from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1965, no. 468).
The Perugian goldsmith Vicenzo Danti (1530-1576) left his native city for Florence in 1557 where he worked in the court workshop under the sponsorship of Cosimo I de'Medici. Among his more important commissions were Honor Triumphant Over Falsehood of 1561, and the Venus Anadyomene for the Studiolo of the Palazzo Vecchio of circa 1570-1573.
The Perugian goldsmith Vicenzo Danti (1530-1576) left his native city for Florence in 1557 where he worked in the court workshop under the sponsorship of Cosimo I de'Medici. Among his more important commissions were Honor Triumphant Over Falsehood of 1561, and the Venus Anadyomene for the Studiolo of the Palazzo Vecchio of circa 1570-1573.