LOMBARDY/VENETO, CIRCA 1600

The winged caryatid supports, winged putto heads, and opposed acanthus-sheathed S-scroll cresting reveal the influence of the Sansovino frame, a hallmark of Venetian Mannerism made from about 1550, and taking its name from the architect and sculptor Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), who worked there from 1527 until his death. Sansovino frames were first of tabernacle form, but strapwork scrolls gradually replaced the architecture, the caryatids and putto masks remaining as stylistic vestiges. A Venetian frame of circa 1600, illustrated in T. J. Newbery, G. Bisacca, L. B. Kanter, Italian Renaissance Frames, Exhibition Catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, no.46, p.72, has reminiscent carving to the frieze, another from the Veneto or Lombardy of the early 17th century in the Samuel H. Kress collection (Ibid., no.47, p.72) has winged cherubs at the angles.