NORTH ITALIAN, PROBABLY PADUAN, EARLY 16TH CENTURY

This bronze is one of a number of similar examples derived from a lost antique model which featured a team of harnessed panthers leading Bacchus' chariot. Variations of the model made during the first half of the 16th century include two examples with curled tails in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.101.1429) and The Fitzwilliam Museum of Art, Cambridge (M.20-1979), and two thicker versions with tails hanging straight down in the Kress Collection (A.226.67C) and the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (no. 153). Examples that relate mostly closely to the current lot, with raised right leg and tail wrapped around the back leg, include one in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (54.38) and one sold from the collection of Carter Burden, sold Sotheby's, New York, 18 October 2003, lot 78. Although exact date and origin for these bronzes varies, the Walters Collection example has traditionally been identified as from Padua in the early 16th century, which further strengthens the dating for the current lot.