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Lot Essay
The figure has its origins in a colossal marble figure of David carved by Girolamo Campagna to guard the entrance at the Zecca (now Libreria Marciana, dated 1591). The pendant to the David was carved by Tiziano Aspetti, a Paduan sculptor a generation younger than Campagna, who developed a distinctive and highly influential style, based on the dramatic lighting of the Venetian masters, in particular Tintoretto, and the narrative modeling in the round of Giambologna, whose work Aspetti would have seen in abundance after his move to Tuscany in 1604.
In the modeling and contrapposto posture the present figure compares closely to several works in Aspetti’s oeuvre, including another figure of Mars in the Frick Collection (1916.2.56), an attributed Male Nude in the Getty Museum (88.SB.115), it also has the same lean facial features as Aspetti’s Mars as a Contemporary Warrior in the Met Museum (1970.314). Only one other cast of this model is known, but lacking Mars’ shield, now located in Budapest (Balogh, op. cit., no. 230).
In the modeling and contrapposto posture the present figure compares closely to several works in Aspetti’s oeuvre, including another figure of Mars in the Frick Collection (1916.2.56), an attributed Male Nude in the Getty Museum (88.SB.115), it also has the same lean facial features as Aspetti’s Mars as a Contemporary Warrior in the Met Museum (1970.314). Only one other cast of this model is known, but lacking Mars’ shield, now located in Budapest (Balogh, op. cit., no. 230).