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Lot Essay
This powerfully built figure of Neptune would originally have held a trident in his right hand and reins for the hippocampi in his left. It is probably meant to depict the moment described in the Aeneid when Neptune - angered by an incursion into his domain by Juno who had incited the winds to sink several Trojan ships - rode out in his chariot and threatened to punish the winds for their insolence.
When Bode published this bronze - which he considered to be the finest among the known examples - in 1913 (loc. cit.) he attributed it to Jacopo Sansovino on the basis of the stylistic similarity to known works by the artist such as his over-lifesize marble figure of Neptune from the Scala dei Giganti at the Doge's palace in Venice (see illustration). However, by 1921 Leo Planiscig had noted the similarities between the present bronze and the reliefs by Sansovino's pupil, Tiziano Minio, on the Loggetta (illustrated in Planiscig, op. cit., figs. 414, 415, 418 and 419). Tiziano's male figures were noticeably more muscular than Sansovino's, and the manner in which the waves were depicted in both the reliefs and the bronze were closely comparable. Subsequent scholars have followed Planiscig's suggestion and the attribution is now generally accepted.
As noted by Bode, this cast is perhaps the finest of the known examples of the composition, with its rich brown colour, its robust modelling and its sensitive attention to the finishing of details such as the toenails and the wings of the hippocampi. For a list of the other known versions, see the entry by Wixom in the 1975 exhibition of Renaissance Bronzes from Ohio Collections (loc. cit.).
When Bode published this bronze - which he considered to be the finest among the known examples - in 1913 (loc. cit.) he attributed it to Jacopo Sansovino on the basis of the stylistic similarity to known works by the artist such as his over-lifesize marble figure of Neptune from the Scala dei Giganti at the Doge's palace in Venice (see illustration). However, by 1921 Leo Planiscig had noted the similarities between the present bronze and the reliefs by Sansovino's pupil, Tiziano Minio, on the Loggetta (illustrated in Planiscig, op. cit., figs. 414, 415, 418 and 419). Tiziano's male figures were noticeably more muscular than Sansovino's, and the manner in which the waves were depicted in both the reliefs and the bronze were closely comparable. Subsequent scholars have followed Planiscig's suggestion and the attribution is now generally accepted.
As noted by Bode, this cast is perhaps the finest of the known examples of the composition, with its rich brown colour, its robust modelling and its sensitive attention to the finishing of details such as the toenails and the wings of the hippocampi. For a list of the other known versions, see the entry by Wixom in the 1975 exhibition of Renaissance Bronzes from Ohio Collections (loc. cit.).