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Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Catalogue de tableaux, objects d'art et de curiosité formant la collection de M.r le Comte J.B. Lucini Passalaqua de Milan, dans le foyer du grand Théatre de la Scala, 14 April 1885, lot 104 (under 'sculptures en marbre').
J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1964, no. 405.
A. Vigano, 'Il periodo Milanese di Benedetto Briosco e i suoi rapporti con i cognate Francesco e Tommaso Cazzaniga: Nuove acquisizioni documentario', Arte Lombarda, vol. 108-109, 1994, pp. 140-160.
C.M. Morscheck, Jr., 'Cazzaniga,' The Dictionary of Art, ed. J. Turner, London and New York, 1996, vol. 6, p. 123.
It has been suggested that this roundel was inspired by a fourth century AD Macedonian tetradrachm of King Philip II of Macedonia (359-336 BC). While it is possible that an ancient coin or gem may have been used as a source for the present relief, as Charles Avery has
observed in a catalogue entry prepared for Salander O'Reilly Galleries, the Macedonian coin does not represent a rearing horse and thus cannot definitively be identified as the model.
Due to its subject matter and execution, the relief has been more
plausibly related to roundels set into the bases of columns from the
Giovanni Francesco Brivio monument in Sant'Eustogio in Milan, which was begun by Francesco Cazzaniga and completed in 1486 by his younger
brother, Tommaso (fl. Milan, 1481-1504) with his brother-in-law,
Benedetto Briosco. Avery notes that a relief from the Brivio tomb
analogously represents a man on a rearing horse, with the addition of a crouching man beneath the animal's hooves. The scholar further states that a more precise parallel may be found on a roundel set into the base of a column from the Della Torre tomb in S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, which was sculpted by the Cazzanigas and Briosco circa 1483, and which represents the present sculpture's composition in reverse. Most of the reliefs on these tombs have been attributed to a single hand, most likely that of Tommaso. Furthermore, the same spirited carving and compositional arrangement of the figures against a shallow, slightly concave background may be found in a relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a relief of Dedalus in the Louvre (inv. no. RF887) and a third tondo formerly in the Passalaqua collection that shares the same dimensions as the present sculpture.
Catalogue de tableaux, objects d'art et de curiosité formant la collection de M.r le Comte J.B. Lucini Passalaqua de Milan, dans le foyer du grand Théatre de la Scala, 14 April 1885, lot 104 (under 'sculptures en marbre').
J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1964, no. 405.
A. Vigano, 'Il periodo Milanese di Benedetto Briosco e i suoi rapporti con i cognate Francesco e Tommaso Cazzaniga: Nuove acquisizioni documentario', Arte Lombarda, vol. 108-109, 1994, pp. 140-160.
C.M. Morscheck, Jr., 'Cazzaniga,' The Dictionary of Art, ed. J. Turner, London and New York, 1996, vol. 6, p. 123.
It has been suggested that this roundel was inspired by a fourth century AD Macedonian tetradrachm of King Philip II of Macedonia (359-336 BC). While it is possible that an ancient coin or gem may have been used as a source for the present relief, as Charles Avery has
observed in a catalogue entry prepared for Salander O'Reilly Galleries, the Macedonian coin does not represent a rearing horse and thus cannot definitively be identified as the model.
Due to its subject matter and execution, the relief has been more
plausibly related to roundels set into the bases of columns from the
Giovanni Francesco Brivio monument in Sant'Eustogio in Milan, which was begun by Francesco Cazzaniga and completed in 1486 by his younger
brother, Tommaso (fl. Milan, 1481-1504) with his brother-in-law,
Benedetto Briosco. Avery notes that a relief from the Brivio tomb
analogously represents a man on a rearing horse, with the addition of a crouching man beneath the animal's hooves. The scholar further states that a more precise parallel may be found on a roundel set into the base of a column from the Della Torre tomb in S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, which was sculpted by the Cazzanigas and Briosco circa 1483, and which represents the present sculpture's composition in reverse. Most of the reliefs on these tombs have been attributed to a single hand, most likely that of Tommaso. Furthermore, the same spirited carving and compositional arrangement of the figures against a shallow, slightly concave background may be found in a relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a relief of Dedalus in the Louvre (inv. no. RF887) and a third tondo formerly in the Passalaqua collection that shares the same dimensions as the present sculpture.