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拍品專文
The story of Judith comes from the Old Testament Apocrypha during a siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrians. Judith, a rich and beautiful widow, made her way to the Assyrian forces on the pretence that she had deserted her people and had come to tell the Assyrians how to overcome their foe. The general Holofernes became enamoured of Judith and threw a banquet in her honour before trying to seduce her in his tent. Drunk from the banquet, Holofernes presented little opposition, and Judith took the opportunity to take his sword and decapitate him. When the deed was discovered, it threw the Assyrians into confusion and they fled. Judith thus became a symbol of virtue overcoming vice to the Jewish people.
Severo da Ravenna is known from documentary sources to have been active as a sculptor and founder in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. His signed marble figure of John the Baptist is in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, and a number of small bronzes are attributed to him on stylistic grounds and a very few signed works. The examples most commonly associated with Severo are the small bronze satyrs and satyresses, often as part of a domestic object such as a candlestick or inkwell (see Frankfurt, op. cit., nos. 148-158). The present bronze is considerably more rare in its subject matter, but is related to other bronzes attributed to Severo. The facial type of Judith is directly comparable to the head of the female satyr in two bronze candlesticks attributed to the workshop of Severo (ibid, nos. 156 and 157). More importantly, the head of Holofernes - rendered with a delicate realism - compares favourably with the head of Cyrus from the group Queen Tomyris with the head of Cyrus in the Frick Collection, New York, which is considered to be an autograph work (Pope-Hennessy, op. cit., pp. 136-140).
Severo da Ravenna is known from documentary sources to have been active as a sculptor and founder in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. His signed marble figure of John the Baptist is in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, and a number of small bronzes are attributed to him on stylistic grounds and a very few signed works. The examples most commonly associated with Severo are the small bronze satyrs and satyresses, often as part of a domestic object such as a candlestick or inkwell (see Frankfurt, op. cit., nos. 148-158). The present bronze is considerably more rare in its subject matter, but is related to other bronzes attributed to Severo. The facial type of Judith is directly comparable to the head of the female satyr in two bronze candlesticks attributed to the workshop of Severo (ibid, nos. 156 and 157). More importantly, the head of Holofernes - rendered with a delicate realism - compares favourably with the head of Cyrus from the group Queen Tomyris with the head of Cyrus in the Frick Collection, New York, which is considered to be an autograph work (Pope-Hennessy, op. cit., pp. 136-140).