Lot Essay
This beautifully executed bust, created on a small scale but with all the presence and sensitivity of a much larger work, can be attributed to one of the three sons of Antonio Lombardo who, together, established a foundry at Recanati (Penny, op. cit., p. 73), and are documented as having received a number of important commissions in the area. Among these was the bronze tabernacle of the cathedral in Fermo, and it is on the basis of the technical and stylistic similarities between this bust and several of the apostle figures on the tabernacle that the attribution to the Lombardi is based. All of the bronzes share a similar heavy casting technique and the tabernacle figure of St. Thomas, with his delicate features and distinctively modelled hair and beard, is directly comparable to the present bust.