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Lot Essay
As Alison Luchs notes in her book on ideal portrait sculpture in renaissance Venice, Simone Bianco was one of the most important followers of Tullio and Antonio Lombardo, and may have entered their workshop when he arrived in Venice from his native Florence in around 1512 (op. cit., pp. 103-105). He and sculptors such as Antonio Minello were amongst a handful of artists who developed the type of bust favoured by the Lombardi, which displayed a conscious dependence on antique prototypes. Although still an ideal type, Simone depicted the sitters of his busts wearing contemporary hairstyles and clothes in an apparent attempt to give the busts a greater sense of immediacy for the viewer.
The present bust of a young woman is closely related to one of the most beautiful examples of this trend - a bust attributed to Simone in the Bode Museum in Berlin (illustrated in Luchs, op. cit., pp. 297-298, figs. 184, 186-7, see fig. 1). Like the bust offered here, the bust in Berlin depicts a young woman wearing a simple shirt or camicia, with one breast exposed. Both busts are truncated horizontally in the Florentine tradition, and both have elaborate coiffeurs, with great bunches of hair swept up over a diadem-like braid, and tiny ringlets trailing forward over the shoulders. However, the treatment of the drapery and subtle differences in the physiognomy of the present figure suggest this is not by Simone himself, but by an independent contemporary sculptor who was familiar with Simone's work.
Although somewhat removed from the classicising austerity of the female subjects of Tullio and Antonio Lombardo, the bust offered here also stops short of being a genuine portrait of a historical figure. Rather, the soft oval face, the parted lips and the tunic en negligée, depict a contemporary form of ideal beauty that is also seen in the paintings of Venetian artists such as Titian or Sebastiano del Piombo (ibid, p. 105, figs. 147 and 148). Still beautiful by any standards, the bust is all the more interesting for the insight it gives into the image of feminine beauty in Venice circa 1520. Further research into sculptors of the early 16th century may one day reveal the identity of its author.
The present bust of a young woman is closely related to one of the most beautiful examples of this trend - a bust attributed to Simone in the Bode Museum in Berlin (illustrated in Luchs, op. cit., pp. 297-298, figs. 184, 186-7, see fig. 1). Like the bust offered here, the bust in Berlin depicts a young woman wearing a simple shirt or camicia, with one breast exposed. Both busts are truncated horizontally in the Florentine tradition, and both have elaborate coiffeurs, with great bunches of hair swept up over a diadem-like braid, and tiny ringlets trailing forward over the shoulders. However, the treatment of the drapery and subtle differences in the physiognomy of the present figure suggest this is not by Simone himself, but by an independent contemporary sculptor who was familiar with Simone's work.
Although somewhat removed from the classicising austerity of the female subjects of Tullio and Antonio Lombardo, the bust offered here also stops short of being a genuine portrait of a historical figure. Rather, the soft oval face, the parted lips and the tunic en negligée, depict a contemporary form of ideal beauty that is also seen in the paintings of Venetian artists such as Titian or Sebastiano del Piombo (ibid, p. 105, figs. 147 and 148). Still beautiful by any standards, the bust is all the more interesting for the insight it gives into the image of feminine beauty in Venice circa 1520. Further research into sculptors of the early 16th century may one day reveal the identity of its author.