Lot Essay
These figures are variants of two of Pietro Tacca's moors, situated around the base of the monument to Ferdinando de Medici in the Piazza della Darsena, Livorno. These bronzes, considered to be among Tacca's works, originated from life-casts of galley slaves, taken by Tacca in 1607, and probably originally intended for the equestrian monument to Ferdinando which stands in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Pietro Tacca (1577-1640) was one of Giambologna's most gifted pupils and, on his master's death in 1608, succeeded him in the office of court sculptor to the Medici Grand Dukes (K. Watson, Pietro Tacca, Successor to Giovanni Bologna, London, 1983, pp. 206-212; and C. Avery, Giambologna, The Complete Sculpture, Oxford, 1987, p. 229, fig. 263).