Newly discovered Italian sculptures

Apollo, Sept, 2005 by Susan Moore

For once, it was sculpture that stole the show in Christie's general sale of Important European Furniture, Sculpture and Carpets on 7 July. The top lot here was a cast of a Giambologna bronze group of Nessus abducting Deianira. Christie's attributed it to Antonio Susini, the traditional catch-all for any good-quality early cast from the master's immediate circle, and indeed this was an extremely fine example. Perhaps its anonymous purchaser, who was prepared to part with 2.36m [pounds sterling] for a piece estimated at 400,000 [pounds sterling]-600,000 [pounds sterling], thought he was buying an autograph Giambologna--it is certainly the price for one. Equally, securing as good a cast as one is likely to get may come that expensive these days. Another big price was achieved for the grandiose bronze group of Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici on Horseback of around 1695, signed by Giuseppe Piamontini. Chilling rather than thrilling, perhaps, it sold to an American collector at the top end of its estimate for 1.24m [pounds sterling].

Given that the big money these days seems reserved for such polished late-sixteenth- or early-seventeenth-century bronzes, the price of the Florentine quattrocento bronze model of Cupid in the same sale came as more of a surprise. Another rediscovery, it is rather an extraordinary object (above). Unique, unusually large--28 cm--for a table-top bronze of the late fifteenth century, it is solid bronze, with virtually all of its modelling achieved in the wax prior to casting but with a surface that has been extensively hammered. This is no small-scale adult but a well-observed chubby little boy. A bronze cupid in mid-flight in the Fitzwilliam Museum appears to be by the same hand. Whose that hand might be is a more difficult question to answer, with Christie's, at least, coming down in favour of the workshop of Verrocchio. Expected to fetch 200,000 [pounds sterling]-300,000 [pounds sterling], it realised 1.352m [pounds sterling].

As for the little 7.5 cm-high wax model of a seated woman indubitably by Giambologna--bearing his thumb-print to boot--that sold at the low end of its estimate, for 176,000 [pounds sterling]. The extraordinary Messerschmidt alabaster head offered by Sotheby's on 8 July and illustrated in APOLLO in July soared to sell for just over 1m [pounds sterling].