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Lot Essay
The central figure in this fluid group of nude warriors is clearly inspired by the Hellenistic sculpture of the Laocoon, unearthed in Rome in 1506 and installed shortly afterwards in the Belvedere at the Vatican by Pope Giulio II. It almost immediately became one of the most influential sources for artists, and is recorded both in drawn and engraved representations and in barely disguised borrowings in both paintings and sculpture.
Bandinelli was himself commissioned to make a copy of the sculpture in the 1520s, now in the Uffizi, Florence (P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, Oxford, 1986, no. 122b). This may be the one referred to in a report from the Venetian ambassador in the reign of Pope Adrian VI (1522-23): 'The King of France asked Pope Leo in Bologna for the gift of this work (the original Laocoon group). The Pope promised it to him, but in order not to deprive the Belvedere he decided to have a copy made to give to him, and already the boys are made which are there in a room…' (quoted in P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 154). Two drawings by Bandinelli of the figure of Laocoon himself, without the right arm, and another of his torso, are in the Uffizi (inv. nos. 14785F and 14786F; P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 154).
The figure leaning forward, to the left of the present drawing, is a free borrowing from Michelangelo's very influential cartoon of The Battle of Cascina, for which the cartoon was finished in February 1505 but which is now known only through copies.
The numbering '4.Bl' in the lower left of the present drawing is very similar to inscriptions '5.Bl' and '9.Bl' (?) on A reclining male nude formerly in the collection of Benjamin West and now in the British Museum (R. Ward, Baccio Bandinelli, 1492-1560, Drawings from British Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1988, no. 7). The inscription has been read 'Rs', implying a Spanish price code for Reales, but this seems unlikely. Rather it suggests that the drawings were consecutive sheets in an as yet untraced colection. In this regard it is interesting to note that the British Museum drawing is a compilation of free borrowings from Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, a similar approach to the interpretation of The Battle of Cascina in the present drawing.
Bandinelli was himself commissioned to make a copy of the sculpture in the 1520s, now in the Uffizi, Florence (P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, Oxford, 1986, no. 122b). This may be the one referred to in a report from the Venetian ambassador in the reign of Pope Adrian VI (1522-23): 'The King of France asked Pope Leo in Bologna for the gift of this work (the original Laocoon group). The Pope promised it to him, but in order not to deprive the Belvedere he decided to have a copy made to give to him, and already the boys are made which are there in a room…' (quoted in P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 154). Two drawings by Bandinelli of the figure of Laocoon himself, without the right arm, and another of his torso, are in the Uffizi (inv. nos. 14785F and 14786F; P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 154).
The figure leaning forward, to the left of the present drawing, is a free borrowing from Michelangelo's very influential cartoon of The Battle of Cascina, for which the cartoon was finished in February 1505 but which is now known only through copies.
The numbering '4.B