A BRONZE FIGURE OF THE DANCING FAUN

WORKSHOP OF MASSIMILIANO SOLDANI-BENZI (1656-1714), 18TH CENTURY

Details

A BRONZE FIGURE OF THE DANCING FAUN
Workshop of Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1714), 18th century
On a circular bronze socle.
Dark reddish brown patina with greenish brown high points.
10 5/8 in. (27 cm.) high

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
C. Avery, Studies in European Sculpture, London, 1981, pp. 122-32 ('Soldani's small bronze statuettes after "Old Master" Sculptures in Florence' (1976)).
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique - The Lure of Classical Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 205-8, no. 34, fig. 106.
Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, Die Bronzen der Fürstlichen Sammlung Liechtenstein, 26 November 1986 - 15 February 1987, pp. 228-9, no. 47.

Lot Essay

The admiration felt for the Dancing Faun by Goethe and others was also fully shared by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi. In a letter of 1695 to his patron, Prince Johann Adam von Liechtenstein, he described it as 'la più bella statua che si trovi', and subsequently produced a full-scale bronze of it for the Prince (Frankfurt, loc. cit.). It also featured among the classical - and more modern - statues of which he made smaller scale reductions (Avery, loc. cit.). Examples of the present model are in the Museum of the Chorherrenstift at Klosterneuburg, and (formerly) with the Heim Gallery in London.

It is not known precisely when the ancient marble of the Dancing Faun reached Florence, or indeed where or when it was originally excavated, but it swiftly established itself in the popular imagination, and enjoys a prominent situation in Zoffany's celebrated painting of the Tribuna of the Uffizi in the Royal Collection (Haskell and Penny, loc. cit., and p. 57, fig. 30).

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