Lot 139
139
THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
A NORTH ITALIAN BRONZE ANDIRON, in the form of a bearded satyr's mask flanked by half-figures of winged horses ridden by a male and female satyr, the mask now surmounted by an associated figure of a triton attributed to Niccolò Roccatagliata, with forked tail, blowing into a trumpet-shaped shell (the triton early 17th Century), second half 16th Century

Details
A NORTH ITALIAN BRONZE ANDIRON, in the form of a bearded satyr's mask flanked by half-figures of winged horses ridden by a male and female satyr, the mask now surmounted by an associated figure of a triton attributed to Niccolò Roccatagliata, with forked tail, blowing into a trumpet-shaped shell (the triton early 17th Century), second half 16th Century
17 7/8 x 27in. (45.4 x 68.6cm.)
Provenance
Karl Henschel, Kassel, circa 1920, and thence by descent
Literature
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
L. Planiscig, Venezianische Bildhauer, Vienna, 1921, pp. 514-5, fig. 558
C. List, Kleinbronzen Europas..., Munich, 1983, p. 108, fig. 62
L. Camins, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Abbott Guggenheim Collection, San Francisco, 1988, no. 19

Lot Essay

The exceptionally strong modelling of the satyr's mask on the present andiron is reminiscent of the work of Andrea di Alessandro da Brescia, who was probably a pupil of Alessandro Vittoria. A signed candelabra by him in Santa Maria della Salute in Venice is believed to date from the 1580's (cf. Planiscig, op.cit.), and he cast a model of St Sebastian for Vittoria, dated 1566, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (cf. List, op.cit.).
The figure of the triton exists in various collections (cf. Camins, op.cit.).

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