.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Giambologna's extraordinary gifts as a creator of animalier bronzes were given full rein in the pair of bronzes of a Lion attacking a Horse and a Lion attacking a Bull. The prototype for the former was a fragmentary marble group now in the garden of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome, which Michelangelo is reputed to have described as 'meravigliosissimo' (most wonderful). The group was restored in 1594 by the Milanese sculptor, Ruggiero Bescapè, with the horse's head bowed forward in surrender. A rare variant by Giambologna shows a very similar solution, but here he imagined a far more dramatic reconstruction, in which the horse's neck is twisted back in agony, and its head is racked by pain. The Lion and Bull, which is clearly designed as its pendant, also had an antique prototype, albeit a less celebrated one. It was Giambologna's achievement to make the two even more intensely dramatic than their models, and also to make a harmonious if savage pair of them. One fascinating way in which he does so is to make the lion strikingly similar, but not quite identical, in each case.
Although no example of this pair of bronzes is signed by Giambologna, they are listed among his models in the early sources. Thus in 1611 Markus Zeh referred to 'Un gruppo d'un lione ch'ammazo un cavallo' and 'Un gruppo d'un lione ch'uccide un toro', while in 1688 Baldinucci listed 'Il Cavallo ucciso dal Leone' and 'Il toro ucciso dal Tigre' (actually a known variant of this group) (Dhanens, loc. cit.). It has been suggested by Charles Avery (loc. cit.) that while the invention of the bull group is indeed Giambologna's, he may have delegated responsibility for the horse group to Antonio Susini. Two examples of each model are signed by Antonio, but in each case the wording of the inscription is different. Both bull groups - respectively in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and the Louvre - are marked 'F' for 'fecit', whereas both horse groups - again in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia and in the Detroit Institute of Arts - are marked 'OPUS' (Avery and Radcliffe, loc. cit.). The intention may have been to distinguish between a bronze invented by Antonio and one merely executed by him but this is by no means proven. For while it is true that less invention was required in the case of the horse group, where only the victim's head could not be based on the antique prototype, this very feature is indisputably the most thrilling element in either bronze. It is not by chance that it so caught the imagination of Jan Baptist Weenix (1621- circa 1660) that he represented the classical group with the flailing head from the bronze in a capriccio view of Rome, sold Christie's London, 8 July 1988, lot 6.
These two groups can be closely compared to the same models attributed to Antonio Susini from the Earl of Radnor's collection and sold Christie's, London, 7 December 1993, lot 108 and now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Both the metal and their finish is extremely close and, more importantly, they have identical casting seams.
In 1900, both of the present bronze groups were part of the collection of a M. Gaston Léorier, a collector or dealer who lent them to the Exposition Universelle of that same year. The bronzes were clearly held in great esteem at the time as correspondence between Léorier and the Louvre Curators, Leprieur and Molinier suggests. Molinier, after curating the retrospective exhibition of French art at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, retired from the Louvre to work as a dealer. In a letter written by a M. Ernst Creillard, also probably a Parisian dealer, to Léorier dated 27 July, 1900, Creillard suggests that even though the bronzes were '... excessivement beaux...' the price being offered of FF100,000 was high '...il faut une personne très riche, plusieurs fois millionaire pour disposer en dehors de ses besoins, d'une somme aussi importante. Un Gould, un Gordon Bennett, un Vanderbilt...'
Although no example of this pair of bronzes is signed by Giambologna, they are listed among his models in the early sources. Thus in 1611 Markus Zeh referred to 'Un gruppo d'un lione ch'ammazo un cavallo' and 'Un gruppo d'un lione ch'uccide un toro', while in 1688 Baldinucci listed 'Il Cavallo ucciso dal Leone' and 'Il toro ucciso dal Tigre' (actually a known variant of this group) (Dhanens, loc. cit.). It has been suggested by Charles Avery (loc. cit.) that while the invention of the bull group is indeed Giambologna's, he may have delegated responsibility for the horse group to Antonio Susini. Two examples of each model are signed by Antonio, but in each case the wording of the inscription is different. Both bull groups - respectively in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and the Louvre - are marked 'F' for 'fecit', whereas both horse groups - again in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia and in the Detroit Institute of Arts - are marked 'OPUS' (Avery and Radcliffe, loc. cit.). The intention may have been to distinguish between a bronze invented by Antonio and one merely executed by him but this is by no means proven. For while it is true that less invention was required in the case of the horse group, where only the victim's head could not be based on the antique prototype, this very feature is indisputably the most thrilling element in either bronze. It is not by chance that it so caught the imagination of Jan Baptist Weenix (1621- circa 1660) that he represented the classical group with the flailing head from the bronze in a capriccio view of Rome, sold Christie's London, 8 July 1988, lot 6.
These two groups can be closely compared to the same models attributed to Antonio Susini from the Earl of Radnor's collection and sold Christie's, London, 7 December 1993, lot 108 and now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Both the metal and their finish is extremely close and, more importantly, they have identical casting seams.
In 1900, both of the present bronze groups were part of the collection of a M. Gaston Léorier, a collector or dealer who lent them to the Exposition Universelle of that same year. The bronzes were clearly held in great esteem at the time as correspondence between Léorier and the Louvre Curators, Leprieur and Molinier suggests. Molinier, after curating the retrospective exhibition of French art at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, retired from the Louvre to work as a dealer. In a letter written by a M. Ernst Creillard, also probably a Parisian dealer, to Léorier dated 27 July, 1900, Creillard suggests that even though the bronzes were '... excessivement beaux...' the price being offered of FF100,000 was high '...il faut une personne très riche, plusieurs fois millionaire pour disposer en dehors de ses besoins, d'une somme aussi importante. Un Gould, un Gordon Bennett, un Vanderbilt...'