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Lot Essay
Born Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi in Gazzuolo near Mantua, Antico was named as such by his contemporaries due to the refined interpretation of antique subjects they recognised in his work. He is believed to have trained as a goldsmith and later gained favour with Mantua's ruling family, the Gonzaga. He excelled in the court of Isabella D'Este, alongside the brilliant painter Andrea Mantegna.
The present bust is virtually identical to a bust of the Augustan Julius Caesar in the Museo Diocesano in Mantua which is an accepted model by Antico (see Allison, loc. cit.). The Mantuan bust is part of a series of eight heads, four of bronze, four of marble, that Antico set into gilded plaster shoulders for his patron, Ludovico Gonzago (Luciano, op. cit., p. 49).
The Gonzaga were often keen to use the iconography of Imperial Rome for propoganda and political purposes and Ludovico was no different in his strong interest in antique portraiture. The idea of recreating an antique marble in bronze had been the brainchild of Mantegna. When Isabella d'Aragone asked her cousin Isabella d'Este to give her an antique head that Mantegna had recently purchased in Rome, he suggested to his patroness that his marble could be 'cast in bronze', an idea that seems to have inspired Ludovico.
The four bronze heads from the series Antico created each had an antique prototype. The head of the Augustan Julius Caesar, and therefore the present bust, probably derives from a marble bust now in the Palazzo Pitti. There are, however, key differences in the casting of the different busts in the series that suggest that they were not made at the same time. The heads did not originally form a group and were only unified once Antico had provided them with their plaster lower sections.
Technical analysis by Dylan Smith and Shelley Sturman of Antico's bronzes for the 2011-12 exhibition of the artist revealed that the busts of the Augustan Julius Caesar and Augustus are both 'made from alloys with a distinct proportion of antimony to lead resulting from a change in their preparation or the raw materials used' (Luciano, op. cit., p. 160). The pupils of the eyes of these two busts, as in our present bust, are dotlike, rather than the typical bean shape or open circle that Antico more regularly used (Luciano, op. cit., p. 160). The sclera, but not the pupil, of these eyes were silvered which also marks them out in Antico's oeuvre. These characteristics, along with their complementary gaze - one looking left and the other right- suggest that they were made as pendants and were only later incorporated into the larger series of eight.
The silvering of the eyes, furrowed brow and veining of the neck of the present bronze create an extraordinary realism. It was one of the first times an antique marble had ever been copied in bronze and is a supreme example of Renaissance portraiture.
The present bust is virtually identical to a bust of the Augustan Julius Caesar in the Museo Diocesano in Mantua which is an accepted model by Antico (see Allison, loc. cit.). The Mantuan bust is part of a series of eight heads, four of bronze, four of marble, that Antico set into gilded plaster shoulders for his patron, Ludovico Gonzago (Luciano, op. cit., p. 49).
The Gonzaga were often keen to use the iconography of Imperial Rome for propoganda and political purposes and Ludovico was no different in his strong interest in antique portraiture. The idea of recreating an antique marble in bronze had been the brainchild of Mantegna. When Isabella d'Aragone asked her cousin Isabella d'Este to give her an antique head that Mantegna had recently purchased in Rome, he suggested to his patroness that his marble could be 'cast in bronze', an idea that seems to have inspired Ludovico.
The four bronze heads from the series Antico created each had an antique prototype. The head of the Augustan Julius Caesar, and therefore the present bust, probably derives from a marble bust now in the Palazzo Pitti. There are, however, key differences in the casting of the different busts in the series that suggest that they were not made at the same time. The heads did not originally form a group and were only unified once Antico had provided them with their plaster lower sections.
Technical analysis by Dylan Smith and Shelley Sturman of Antico's bronzes for the 2011-12 exhibition of the artist revealed that the busts of the Augustan Julius Caesar and Augustus are both 'made from alloys with a distinct proportion of antimony to lead resulting from a change in their preparation or the raw materials used' (Luciano, op. cit., p. 160). The pupils of the eyes of these two busts, as in our present bust, are dotlike, rather than the typical bean shape or open circle that Antico more regularly used (Luciano, op. cit., p. 160). The sclera, but not the pupil, of these eyes were silvered which also marks them out in Antico's oeuvre. These characteristics, along with their complementary gaze - one looking left and the other right- suggest that they were made as pendants and were only later incorporated into the larger series of eight.
The silvering of the eyes, furrowed brow and veining of the neck of the present bronze create an extraordinary realism. It was one of the first times an antique marble had ever been copied in bronze and is a supreme example of Renaissance portraiture.