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Lot Essay
Giovanni da Bologna – or Giambologna as he became known – was a Flemish sculptor who travelled to Italy in 1550 and eventually settled in Florence where he became Court Sculptor to the ruling Medici family. He was known for his compositionally complex monumental groups in marble and bronze, but his enormous influence was perhaps most felt through the production of smaller bronze statuettes. These were given by the Medici as diplomatic gifts, thereby planting the seeds of Giambologna’s style in various European courts.
The sculptor produced works on religious and mythological themes, as well as portraits. A significant proportion of his output also centred around scenes of everyday life including animals and rustic figures. The present composition of a bird catcher or fowler depicts a male figure striding forward with a lamp in his upraised hand, used to disorient birds so that they could then be struck with a club or racquet. It probably takes its inspiration from an antique marble group known as the Pedagogue (Uffizi, Florence, illustrated in Avery, op. cit., plate 41) which would have been known to many of Florence’s cultivated elite.
The model was one of Giambologna’s most popular compositions and there are numerous early references which appear to confirm examples in royal and aristocratic European collections (for a discussion, see the entry by Zikos in Paolozzi Strozzi and Zikos, loc. cit.). Importantly, the bird catcher appears in two early sources of works firmly attributed to the artist: the list created by Markus Zeh in 1611 (‘Un contadino che va à frugnuolo’) and that compiled by Filippo Baldinucci in his biography of Giambologna in 1688 (‘Il Villano col Frugnolo’).
The present bronze combines energy and dynamism with an extraordinary attention to detail. The bird catcher’s mouth is slightly open as he seems to concentrate on the task at hand, and the sculptor has delineated the incised eyes, the fingernails and cuticles, and the laces of the subject’s shoes with infinite care. It is these latter details that suggest the hand of Antonio Susini (d. 1624), Giambologna’s most celebrated assistant, who left his master’s workshop in 1600 and established his own flourishing business as an independent sculptor and founder.
The sculptor produced works on religious and mythological themes, as well as portraits. A significant proportion of his output also centred around scenes of everyday life including animals and rustic figures. The present composition of a bird catcher or fowler depicts a male figure striding forward with a lamp in his upraised hand, used to disorient birds so that they could then be struck with a club or racquet. It probably takes its inspiration from an antique marble group known as the Pedagogue (Uffizi, Florence, illustrated in Avery, op. cit., plate 41) which would have been known to many of Florence’s cultivated elite.
The model was one of Giambologna’s most popular compositions and there are numerous early references which appear to confirm examples in royal and aristocratic European collections (for a discussion, see the entry by Zikos in Paolozzi Strozzi and Zikos, loc. cit.). Importantly, the bird catcher appears in two early sources of works firmly attributed to the artist: the list created by Markus Zeh in 1611 (‘Un contadino che va à frugnuolo’) and that compiled by Filippo Baldinucci in his biography of Giambologna in 1688 (‘Il Villano col Frugnolo’).
The present bronze combines energy and dynamism with an extraordinary attention to detail. The bird catcher’s mouth is slightly open as he seems to concentrate on the task at hand, and the sculptor has delineated the incised eyes, the fingernails and cuticles, and the laces of the subject’s shoes with infinite care. It is these latter details that suggest the hand of Antonio Susini (d. 1624), Giambologna’s most celebrated assistant, who left his master’s workshop in 1600 and established his own flourishing business as an independent sculptor and founder.