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Lot Essay
This bronze has long been associated with a series of bronze statuettes attributed to Ferdinando Tacca (1619-1686), a sculptor at the Grand Ducal court in Florence. This attribution originated with Anthony Radcliffe, first appearing in an essay published in the autumn of 1974 (and subsequently in 1976, loc. cit.). Radcliffe argued that Ferdinando Tacca, inheritor of the workshop previously run by Giambologna (1529-1608) and later by his own father, Pietro (1577-1640), represented a crucial link between late 16th-century Mannerism and the Baroque works of artists such as Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725).
The present bronze depicts Apollo and the Python, although it has been referred to previously as Jason and the Dragon and also simply A Warrior. Capturing the moment when Apollo slays the Python which presided over the Delphic oracle, the subject was probably inspired by a print by the Florentine engraver Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) from his illustration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Warren, op. cit., 2010, p. 120). The Python in this engraving, and Apollo’s billowing drapery, shows striking similarity to the present bronze.
It is worth noting that very little documentation exists regarding Ferdinando Tacca’s bronzes, likely due to the waning patronage of the Medici Grand Dukes during the mid-17th century. However, Radcliffe points to the bronze relief of The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, executed by Tacca and installed in the church of San Stefano al Ponte in Florence in 1656, as a key point of reference. The present bronze shares a number of similarities with figures found in the Saint Stephen relief (see Radcliffe, op. cit., p. 15). More broadly, the elongated, slender forms of the figures reflect a strong Florentine Mannerist heritage.
While Tacca’s corpus of works remains the closest stylistic comparison for this model, Jeremy Warren reopened this discussion of attribution in 2010 in his catalogue of the Peter Marino Collection of bronzes. Here, he attributes the model of Apollo to a French sculptor because of its pairing with a statuette of Diana by Guillaume Berthelot (c. 1580-1648) (Warren, 2010, loc. cit.). Warren does not, however, rule out Tacca, and notes that as his models were in circulation in France by the mid-seventeenth century the Apollo could have easily been copied for a French patron in the case of the Marino model. In 2013, Regina Seelig-Teuwen concluded that Berthelot’s hand was unlikely in the making of this model.
With changes in attribution and subject matter throughout its history, this group remains important in the study of bronze statuettes and their influence across Europe. The same model has appeared on the market previously at both Christie’s in 2008 (€289,000) and Sotheby’s in 2018 (£466,000).
The present bronze depicts Apollo and the Python, although it has been referred to previously as Jason and the Dragon and also simply A Warrior. Capturing the moment when Apollo slays the Python which presided over the Delphic oracle, the subject was probably inspired by a print by the Florentine engraver Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) from his illustration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Warren, op. cit., 2010, p. 120). The Python in this engraving, and Apollo’s billowing drapery, shows striking similarity to the present bronze.
It is worth noting that very little documentation exists regarding Ferdinando Tacca’s bronzes, likely due to the waning patronage of the Medici Grand Dukes during the mid-17th century. However, Radcliffe points to the bronze relief of The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, executed by Tacca and installed in the church of San Stefano al Ponte in Florence in 1656, as a key point of reference. The present bronze shares a number of similarities with figures found in the Saint Stephen relief (see Radcliffe, op. cit., p. 15). More broadly, the elongated, slender forms of the figures reflect a strong Florentine Mannerist heritage.
While Tacca’s corpus of works remains the closest stylistic comparison for this model, Jeremy Warren reopened this discussion of attribution in 2010 in his catalogue of the Peter Marino Collection of bronzes. Here, he attributes the model of Apollo to a French sculptor because of its pairing with a statuette of Diana by Guillaume Berthelot (c. 1580-1648) (Warren, 2010, loc. cit.). Warren does not, however, rule out Tacca, and notes that as his models were in circulation in France by the mid-seventeenth century the Apollo could have easily been copied for a French patron in the case of the Marino model. In 2013, Regina Seelig-Teuwen concluded that Berthelot’s hand was unlikely in the making of this model.
With changes in attribution and subject matter throughout its history, this group remains important in the study of bronze statuettes and their influence across Europe. The same model has appeared on the market previously at both Christie’s in 2008 (€289,000) and Sotheby’s in 2018 (£466,000).