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Lot Essay
Filippo Baldinucci, in Notizie dei professori del disegno, published in 1846, described Damiano Capelli as the son of an assistant to Ferdinando Tacca. Capelli is primarily known as a bronze caster, executing works after Giambologna, Pietro Tacca, Antonio and Gianfrancesco Susini and Algardi. He is thought to have been working from around 1676 and in the Florentine Grand Ducal workshops from 1687. His production remains relatively unknown and the present group is the only known bronze that can be clearly attributed to him due to its signature 'D.C.F.' for ‘Damiano Capelli fecit’.
The group depicts Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Collatinus, about to be ravished by Tarquinius Sextus, son of the Roman tyrant, Tarquin the Proud. Lucretia would afterward commit suicide. Depicting the terrible moment of confrontation itself became popular following Titian’s canvas of 1571 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The model is thought to have been created by Pietro Tacca, circa 1607, when he was working in Giambologna’s workshop. A group of this subject is first recorded in an inventory of 1607-1611 of the kunstkammer of Emperor Rudolph II, Prague, as a product of the Giambologna workshop. The composition is later listed in an eighteenth century inventory of the Doccia porcelain factory, as a wax model by Giovanni Battista Foggini. We know from Baldinucci that Foggini received a large number of moulds by Pietro Tacca, which he used to make later casts. However, Radcliffe argued that the original model was instead made by the Dutch sculptor Hubert Gerhard (c. 1540/1550-1620), on the basis of its style and composition (op. cit., p. 247). The model was then cast by other artists, including a group in the Robert H. Smith collection of circa 1640 (op. cit., p. 240).
The group depicts Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Collatinus, about to be ravished by Tarquinius Sextus, son of the Roman tyrant, Tarquin the Proud. Lucretia would afterward commit suicide. Depicting the terrible moment of confrontation itself became popular following Titian’s canvas of 1571 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The model is thought to have been created by Pietro Tacca, circa 1607, when he was working in Giambologna’s workshop. A group of this subject is first recorded in an inventory of 1607-1611 of the kunstkammer of Emperor Rudolph II, Prague, as a product of the Giambologna workshop. The composition is later listed in an eighteenth century inventory of the Doccia porcelain factory, as a wax model by Giovanni Battista Foggini. We know from Baldinucci that Foggini received a large number of moulds by Pietro Tacca, which he used to make later casts. However, Radcliffe argued that the original model was instead made by the Dutch sculptor Hubert Gerhard (c. 1540/1550-1620), on the basis of its style and composition (op. cit., p. 247). The model was then cast by other artists, including a group in the Robert H. Smith collection of circa 1640 (op. cit., p. 240).