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Lot Essay
Soldani's early interest in coins, medals and goldsmithing provided a firm training for an artist whose services became highly sought after not only in the Medici court but also in that of Louis XIV. The French crown's interest in the young Italian was rapidly quashed, however, by the Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici's own interest in Soldani who had the young artist summoned back to Florence within a year of his arriving in Paris.
Towards the end of the 17th century Soldani turned to figurative sculpture where he incorporated his fastidious attention to detail to the understanding of the human form much in the same way as his inspirations Michelangelo, Giambologna and Bernini had done years earlier. A large part of Soldani's oeuvre seems to be in the dramatising of religious subject matter. He did, however, produce a core of work based around his curiosity for muscular forms and the complex group structures that came out of Greek and Roman sculpture. He added to scenes such as The Dancing Faun, Leda and the Swan and Venus and Adonis the drama of the Baroque, an attention to detail, and a technical sophistication that had only truly been explored by artists like Giambologna and Ferdinando Tacca.
While this bronze head of a satyr does not appear among Soldani's documented works, it follows in the tradition of what seems to have fascinated the artist most: the mythological subject matter, the attention to detail and the fineness of finishing. As with many pieces from his workshop, this figure displays the common mixture of work achieved in the wax prior to casting and the intricate after-working of details such as the hair and the eyebrows. The same facial expression can be seen in his Dancing Faun in the Liechtenstein collection, Vaduz (loc. cit.) and the treatment of the ears, mouth and eyes also bears a great resemblance.
Towards the end of the 17th century Soldani turned to figurative sculpture where he incorporated his fastidious attention to detail to the understanding of the human form much in the same way as his inspirations Michelangelo, Giambologna and Bernini had done years earlier. A large part of Soldani's oeuvre seems to be in the dramatising of religious subject matter. He did, however, produce a core of work based around his curiosity for muscular forms and the complex group structures that came out of Greek and Roman sculpture. He added to scenes such as The Dancing Faun, Leda and the Swan and Venus and Adonis the drama of the Baroque, an attention to detail, and a technical sophistication that had only truly been explored by artists like Giambologna and Ferdinando Tacca.
While this bronze head of a satyr does not appear among Soldani's documented works, it follows in the tradition of what seems to have fascinated the artist most: the mythological subject matter, the attention to detail and the fineness of finishing. As with many pieces from his workshop, this figure displays the common mixture of work achieved in the wax prior to casting and the intricate after-working of details such as the hair and the eyebrows. The same facial expression can be seen in his Dancing Faun in the Liechtenstein collection, Vaduz (loc. cit.) and the treatment of the ears, mouth and eyes also bears a great resemblance.