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Lot Essay
When the present bronze statue was first published by Wilhelm von Bode, the father of modern shcolarship on Italian renaissance bronzes, he attributed it to the late quattrocento sculptor Bartolomeo Bellano (d. 1497). However, as early as 1921 his compatriot, Leo Planiscig, suggested (loc. cit.) an attribution to Bellano's one-time student, Andrea Briosco, known then and now as Riccio, 'the curly head'. By 1927 Planiscig had expanded upon this attribution, by comparing it to the aging male figure in the centre of the bronze relief of the Vision of Constantine. (Ca d'Oro, Venice, illustrated in Planiscig, 1927, op. cit., p. 217). He notes in particular 'the cut of the distinctive face with the wrinkles around the mouth, the curled hair, the modelling of the slim body, the graceful arms and the cut of the hips' which are 'typical features of Riccio's oeuvre'. He argues that the head of the figure in the relief mentioned above so closely resembles the present bronze that they could only be from the same hand. Since that time, the attribution of the model to Riccio has never been seriously questioned.
Andrea Briosco originally trained as a goldsmith before going to work with Bellano to learn the art of bronze casting. His earliest independent work is thought to be the three bronze Virtues for the monument to Pietro Roccabonella (S. Francesco, Padua), originally commissioned from Bellano but left unfinished at the time of the latter's death. However, Riccio's masterpiece is certainly the monumental Paschal Candlestick which he executed between 1507 and 1516 for the church of the Santo in Padua (illustrated in Planiscig, 1927, op. cit, figs. 269-270, 272-276 and 278). Standing at almost 13 feet tall, the candlestick is daringly original in its use of both traditionally christian and pagan elements. These latter, which include sphinxes, satyrs and centaurs, are a reflection of the humanist milieu prevalent in Padua at the time, which was famed for its university and the urban intellectual elite associated with it.
The candlestick was followed by other important commissions, including the tomb of Girolamo and Marcantonio della Torre (S. Fermo Maggiore, Verona), the abbot who had originally authorised giving the commission of the Pascal Candlestick to Riccio. His last documented work was a life-size terracotta Lamentation group of 1530, but it is thought that the arthritis which plagued him throughout his life may have curtailed his activity in later years. He is considered today to be one of the most important sculptors of the renaissance.
Another significant area of Riccio's oeuvre lay in the production of small bronze statuettes, and in this respect he was an important influence for the revival of interest in this classical tradition. Perhaps the best known among these is the Shouting Horseman (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Von Allen Seiten Schön, op. cit., no. 30), however there is a small group of high quality bronzes which have an accepted attribution to the artist. The present bronze male nude figure is known in two variant examples, of which the other was formerly in the possession of Michael Hall, New York, but which has subsequently passed into a private New York collection. That bronze was included in the catalogue of the exhibition Donatello e il suo tempo in 2001 (op. cit., no. 25), and a brief comparison of the two examples was included in the catalogue entry.
The New York example is catalogued simply as a male nude, but it is suggested in the note that it represents a male athlete following the tentative identification of the attributes held in his hands as a strigil and an unguentarium, used to cleanse the skin. The Beit figure no longer holds any attributes, but Bode suggested plausibly that the positioning of the arms, which is slightly different from the New York bronze, originally held a sword in the lowered hand and a shield in the raised one. This suggestion is strengthened by the fact that the fingers of the left hand have been replaced, having almost certainly been damaged when the shield was removed or knocked off. In addition, the rather less finished surface of the raised upper arm and its gentle curve make perfect sense if one imagines the figure with a shield. In his article on another bronze group attributed to Riccio, Bertrand Jestaz refers to the artist's tendency toward 'economies of time' (Jestaz, loc. cit.) - that is, he would spend less time on areas which he knew would never be viewed. The curve of the forearm is explained because it helped to support the curve of the shield, and the less-finished surface was possible because it would be concealed from the viewer.
The muscular figure would therefore have stood, knees slightly bent, bracing himself, with shield held up in preparation to attack or be attacked. His pose was a conscious quotation of antique warrior figures, of which the Borghese Gladiator would later become the most famous example. It was the perfect subject for the secular intellectual circles of early 16th century Padua.
Since the appearance of the New York version of this figure, the relationship between the two bronzes has been the topic of considerable discussion. Some scholars like to suggest that Riccio never cast more than one example of each model, however there are at least two reasons to suggest this is not the case. The first is that there already exists an example of such duplication, in the case of two casts of a seated satyr which are generally accepted as being by Riccio. These bronzes, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the Musei Civici, Padua, are virtually identical apart from the fact that the latter satyr lacks horns and is ithyphallic. The second reason is that x-rays reveal that both the Beit Gladiator and the New York Athlete have wax to wax joins in the model (see illustration for an x-ray of the Beit figure; the casting of the New York bronze is discussed in the exhibition entry mentioned above). The Beit bronze has solid arms with evidence of where the original wax arm was joined to the torso just below each shoulder before casting. This indirect method of casting is only necessary when the author of the bronze has at least conceived of the possibility of producing multiple casts. If it was only ever his intention to produce one example of each composition, the casting could have been a simple direct cast in which the original model was destroyed. It is therefore possible that each of the Beit and New York figures are autograph Riccio bronzes.
As with the satyr figures discussed above, the two male figures here are not actually identical. The most obvious difference is that the New York example has integrally cast attributes in the two hands. However, there are also subtle differences in the positioning of the body - the New York Athlete leans forward slightly more - giving it a greater sense of forward movement. The left arm is also raised slightly higher and bends back at a greater angle from the elbow.
There are also minor differences in the modelling of some of the finer details, especially to the two heads. The facial features of the Beit bronze have been subtly modelled in the wax, with a minimum of afterworking. The New York example is similar, but the wrinkles at the corners of the mouth and nose have been emphasised, the eyes are more open and with a deeper depression between the brow and upper eyelid. There are also wrinkles to the forehead which don't exist on the Beit bronze and the hairline of the New York bronze is marginally higher.
It would be tempting to suppose that the Beit bronze is thus a less complex version of the New York example. This is not the case. Certainly it is true that Riccio was capable of extremely fine detail in his bronzes as is evident from the group of Curete milking the goat Amalthea (for an illustration and discussion of this bronze see Donatello, op. cit., pp. 104-105, no. 12). This had entered the Medici collections by at least 1588 and was obviously a prestigious commission. It was a unique bronze, and was partially gilded; Riccio therefore called upon his training as a goldsmith to produce a precious, jewel-like object. However, Riccio was also a master of bronze casting and could deftly model small scale figures in wax with great economy. The figures in his bronze relief of the Story of Judith in the Santo (1506) have very little to do with the precision of the bronze Curete, but are directly comparable to the Beit figure, with their softly curling hair, long straight noses and high cheekbones (for a detail of the Judith relief, see illustration).
There is, however, a more significant reason why the Beit bronze is not a secondary example of the New York Athlete. As discussed above, the Beit Gladiator almost certainly held a sword and shield in his hands. The positioning of the figure is exactly what one would expect of such a subject. The pose of the Athlete is more perplexing. What is the reason for holding the strigil - which was intended to scrape the oil and dirt from the skin - above the head, and why is the figure about to spring into action with a glass flask in his hand?
The reason is because the Gladiator must have been the original conception. The figure was conceived as a warrior, ready to do battle. We know from x-rays that moulds must have existed and it would therefore have been easy for Riccio subsequently to modify his Gladiator for another patron, changing the attributes and thereby creating a 'new' bronze, possibly after a space of a number of years. We know that other sculptors were capable of returning to compositions which fascinated them, as with the case of Alessandro Vittoria, who had casts of his St. Sebastian executed in 1566 and 1575. In the present case, the position of the body and limbs is not as logical for an athlete but it nevertheless allowed Riccio to create a second ideal athletic male nude.
In terms of its style and facture, the Beit Gladiator must date from the early years of Riccio's career, at approximately the same time as the relief of the Story of Judith and the Paschal Candlestick in the Santo in the first decade of the 16th century. Sadly, nothing is known of its provenance until it is bought 400 years later by Alfred or Otto Beit, sometime between the two catalogues of the family collection published in 1904 and 1913. One hundred years later still, on the centenary of Alfred Beit's death, the Gladiator is being offered to benefit the Alfred Beit Foundation.
Andrea Briosco originally trained as a goldsmith before going to work with Bellano to learn the art of bronze casting. His earliest independent work is thought to be the three bronze Virtues for the monument to Pietro Roccabonella (S. Francesco, Padua), originally commissioned from Bellano but left unfinished at the time of the latter's death. However, Riccio's masterpiece is certainly the monumental Paschal Candlestick which he executed between 1507 and 1516 for the church of the Santo in Padua (illustrated in Planiscig, 1927, op. cit, figs. 269-270, 272-276 and 278). Standing at almost 13 feet tall, the candlestick is daringly original in its use of both traditionally christian and pagan elements. These latter, which include sphinxes, satyrs and centaurs, are a reflection of the humanist milieu prevalent in Padua at the time, which was famed for its university and the urban intellectual elite associated with it.
The candlestick was followed by other important commissions, including the tomb of Girolamo and Marcantonio della Torre (S. Fermo Maggiore, Verona), the abbot who had originally authorised giving the commission of the Pascal Candlestick to Riccio. His last documented work was a life-size terracotta Lamentation group of 1530, but it is thought that the arthritis which plagued him throughout his life may have curtailed his activity in later years. He is considered today to be one of the most important sculptors of the renaissance.
Another significant area of Riccio's oeuvre lay in the production of small bronze statuettes, and in this respect he was an important influence for the revival of interest in this classical tradition. Perhaps the best known among these is the Shouting Horseman (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Von Allen Seiten Schön, op. cit., no. 30), however there is a small group of high quality bronzes which have an accepted attribution to the artist. The present bronze male nude figure is known in two variant examples, of which the other was formerly in the possession of Michael Hall, New York, but which has subsequently passed into a private New York collection. That bronze was included in the catalogue of the exhibition Donatello e il suo tempo in 2001 (op. cit., no. 25), and a brief comparison of the two examples was included in the catalogue entry.
The New York example is catalogued simply as a male nude, but it is suggested in the note that it represents a male athlete following the tentative identification of the attributes held in his hands as a strigil and an unguentarium, used to cleanse the skin. The Beit figure no longer holds any attributes, but Bode suggested plausibly that the positioning of the arms, which is slightly different from the New York bronze, originally held a sword in the lowered hand and a shield in the raised one. This suggestion is strengthened by the fact that the fingers of the left hand have been replaced, having almost certainly been damaged when the shield was removed or knocked off. In addition, the rather less finished surface of the raised upper arm and its gentle curve make perfect sense if one imagines the figure with a shield. In his article on another bronze group attributed to Riccio, Bertrand Jestaz refers to the artist's tendency toward 'economies of time' (Jestaz, loc. cit.) - that is, he would spend less time on areas which he knew would never be viewed. The curve of the forearm is explained because it helped to support the curve of the shield, and the less-finished surface was possible because it would be concealed from the viewer.
The muscular figure would therefore have stood, knees slightly bent, bracing himself, with shield held up in preparation to attack or be attacked. His pose was a conscious quotation of antique warrior figures, of which the Borghese Gladiator would later become the most famous example. It was the perfect subject for the secular intellectual circles of early 16th century Padua.
Since the appearance of the New York version of this figure, the relationship between the two bronzes has been the topic of considerable discussion. Some scholars like to suggest that Riccio never cast more than one example of each model, however there are at least two reasons to suggest this is not the case. The first is that there already exists an example of such duplication, in the case of two casts of a seated satyr which are generally accepted as being by Riccio. These bronzes, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the Musei Civici, Padua, are virtually identical apart from the fact that the latter satyr lacks horns and is ithyphallic. The second reason is that x-rays reveal that both the Beit Gladiator and the New York Athlete have wax to wax joins in the model (see illustration for an x-ray of the Beit figure; the casting of the New York bronze is discussed in the exhibition entry mentioned above). The Beit bronze has solid arms with evidence of where the original wax arm was joined to the torso just below each shoulder before casting. This indirect method of casting is only necessary when the author of the bronze has at least conceived of the possibility of producing multiple casts. If it was only ever his intention to produce one example of each composition, the casting could have been a simple direct cast in which the original model was destroyed. It is therefore possible that each of the Beit and New York figures are autograph Riccio bronzes.
As with the satyr figures discussed above, the two male figures here are not actually identical. The most obvious difference is that the New York example has integrally cast attributes in the two hands. However, there are also subtle differences in the positioning of the body - the New York Athlete leans forward slightly more - giving it a greater sense of forward movement. The left arm is also raised slightly higher and bends back at a greater angle from the elbow.
There are also minor differences in the modelling of some of the finer details, especially to the two heads. The facial features of the Beit bronze have been subtly modelled in the wax, with a minimum of afterworking. The New York example is similar, but the wrinkles at the corners of the mouth and nose have been emphasised, the eyes are more open and with a deeper depression between the brow and upper eyelid. There are also wrinkles to the forehead which don't exist on the Beit bronze and the hairline of the New York bronze is marginally higher.
It would be tempting to suppose that the Beit bronze is thus a less complex version of the New York example. This is not the case. Certainly it is true that Riccio was capable of extremely fine detail in his bronzes as is evident from the group of Curete milking the goat Amalthea (for an illustration and discussion of this bronze see Donatello, op. cit., pp. 104-105, no. 12). This had entered the Medici collections by at least 1588 and was obviously a prestigious commission. It was a unique bronze, and was partially gilded; Riccio therefore called upon his training as a goldsmith to produce a precious, jewel-like object. However, Riccio was also a master of bronze casting and could deftly model small scale figures in wax with great economy. The figures in his bronze relief of the Story of Judith in the Santo (1506) have very little to do with the precision of the bronze Curete, but are directly comparable to the Beit figure, with their softly curling hair, long straight noses and high cheekbones (for a detail of the Judith relief, see illustration).
There is, however, a more significant reason why the Beit bronze is not a secondary example of the New York Athlete. As discussed above, the Beit Gladiator almost certainly held a sword and shield in his hands. The positioning of the figure is exactly what one would expect of such a subject. The pose of the Athlete is more perplexing. What is the reason for holding the strigil - which was intended to scrape the oil and dirt from the skin - above the head, and why is the figure about to spring into action with a glass flask in his hand?
The reason is because the Gladiator must have been the original conception. The figure was conceived as a warrior, ready to do battle. We know from x-rays that moulds must have existed and it would therefore have been easy for Riccio subsequently to modify his Gladiator for another patron, changing the attributes and thereby creating a 'new' bronze, possibly after a space of a number of years. We know that other sculptors were capable of returning to compositions which fascinated them, as with the case of Alessandro Vittoria, who had casts of his St. Sebastian executed in 1566 and 1575. In the present case, the position of the body and limbs is not as logical for an athlete but it nevertheless allowed Riccio to create a second ideal athletic male nude.
In terms of its style and facture, the Beit Gladiator must date from the early years of Riccio's career, at approximately the same time as the relief of the Story of Judith and the Paschal Candlestick in the Santo in the first decade of the 16th century. Sadly, nothing is known of its provenance until it is bought 400 years later by Alfred or Otto Beit, sometime between the two catalogues of the family collection published in 1904 and 1913. One hundred years later still, on the centenary of Alfred Beit's death, the Gladiator is being offered to benefit the Alfred Beit Foundation.