Lot Essay
Examples of this bronze bust have been variously attributed to Hubert Gerhard, Ferdinando Tacca and more generically to the north Italian school of the mid-16th century (see New York, Schwartz and Warren, locs. cit., respectively). Close comparisons may also be made to signed works by the Venetian artist Tiziano Aspetti, whose signed bronze of St Anthony in the Santo, Padua, has similar facial features. The soldier to the left of Aspetti's bronze relief of the Martyrdom of St Daniel also displays the same facial type, curling hair and breastplate centred by a grotesque mask seen on the bust offered here (for both works see Planiscig, loc. cit.)