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拍品專文
These four magnificent gilded Evangelists are seemingly unique casts, and likely a special commission for an important ecclesiastical tabernacle. Each figure has a hole in its base and remnants of an attachment on the reverse, suggesting that they originally adorned niches.
There is no doubt as to the quality of both the modelling and the casting, and the character of each figure is so diverse that the artist responsible must surely have paid particular attention to differentiate them according to the temperament of each Evangelist. The figures have a very strong and contained columnar simplicity, and yet when examined closely are shown to have finely worked details and real depth and volume to their modelling. The quality of the chiselling, which is particularly evident in the texturing of Luke’s accompanying ox, suggests that the artist was expecting them to be viewed from close up.
Traditionally thought to be Venetian, they have been attributed to both Alessandro Vittoria (1525-1608) and Danese Cattaneo (c.1512 – 1572). However their compact composition is in contrast to the elongated figures and exaggerated proportions seen in the work of Vittoria and his contemporaries. In 1988 Camins attributed them to the workshop of Leone Leoni, citing a striking similarity to the over life-size bronze figures of St Peter and St Paul in the retable of the high altar in the church of San Lorenzo in the Escorial, Madrid, the latter of which is signed and dated 1588 by Pompeo Leoni. However, the impact of Michelangelo on the Leone figures, with their forceful striding motion and monumentality, is not evident in the restrained nature of the more thoughtful Abbott Guggenheim figures.
The gracefully observed folds of drapery appear to bear some relation to a pair of anonymous tabernacle figures of Moses and Elijah in the Bargello Museum, Florence (Moses, inv. 379). It has been suggested that the present bronzes are from the hands of the Flemish émigré Jacob Cobaert, who had been ‘brought up’ in Rome in the house of Guglielmo della Porta. The ox and the lion from the gilt-bronze figures of saints Luke and Mark that Montagu attributed to Cobaert from the S. Luigi dei Francesci tabernacle are very close to the corresponding attributes of the present Evangelists. However, Montagu has since argued that the modelling of details such as the hands, and the tenuously balanced poses of the present figures indicate a different hand (personal communication). Perhaps the closest comparison is to a terracotta high relief of the Entombment signed by Guglielmo’s son Teodoro della Porta in the Galleria Spada, Rome (Middeldorf, op. cit., pp. 78-79) and, in particular, the recessed modelling around the eyes and furrowed brow of the two balding figures to Christ’s proper left. There is little other known work by the elusive Teodoro to expand on this comparison.
There is no doubt as to the quality of both the modelling and the casting, and the character of each figure is so diverse that the artist responsible must surely have paid particular attention to differentiate them according to the temperament of each Evangelist. The figures have a very strong and contained columnar simplicity, and yet when examined closely are shown to have finely worked details and real depth and volume to their modelling. The quality of the chiselling, which is particularly evident in the texturing of Luke’s accompanying ox, suggests that the artist was expecting them to be viewed from close up.
Traditionally thought to be Venetian, they have been attributed to both Alessandro Vittoria (1525-1608) and Danese Cattaneo (c.1512 – 1572). However their compact composition is in contrast to the elongated figures and exaggerated proportions seen in the work of Vittoria and his contemporaries. In 1988 Camins attributed them to the workshop of Leone Leoni, citing a striking similarity to the over life-size bronze figures of St Peter and St Paul in the retable of the high altar in the church of San Lorenzo in the Escorial, Madrid, the latter of which is signed and dated 1588 by Pompeo Leoni. However, the impact of Michelangelo on the Leone figures, with their forceful striding motion and monumentality, is not evident in the restrained nature of the more thoughtful Abbott Guggenheim figures.
The gracefully observed folds of drapery appear to bear some relation to a pair of anonymous tabernacle figures of Moses and Elijah in the Bargello Museum, Florence (Moses, inv. 379). It has been suggested that the present bronzes are from the hands of the Flemish émigré Jacob Cobaert, who had been ‘brought up’ in Rome in the house of Guglielmo della Porta. The ox and the lion from the gilt-bronze figures of saints Luke and Mark that Montagu attributed to Cobaert from the S. Luigi dei Francesci tabernacle are very close to the corresponding attributes of the present Evangelists. However, Montagu has since argued that the modelling of details such as the hands, and the tenuously balanced poses of the present figures indicate a different hand (personal communication). Perhaps the closest comparison is to a terracotta high relief of the Entombment signed by Guglielmo’s son Teodoro della Porta in the Galleria Spada, Rome (Middeldorf, op. cit., pp. 78-79) and, in particular, the recessed modelling around the eyes and furrowed brow of the two balding figures to Christ’s proper left. There is little other known work by the elusive Teodoro to expand on this comparison.