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Lot Essay
Antonio Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes is arguably the most important and influential Italian print of the 15th century. Against a backdrop of tall rushes, trees and vines, ten naked men, some adorned with a head-band, are engaged in mortal combat. They are fighting each other, seemingly at random, with swords, daggers, axes and bow and arrow. Their strained bodies are seen in a variety of positions, from the front, back and the sides, standing, crouching and reclining. Their taut muscles are methodically defined with shading, the faces distorted in anguish. Some weapons and shields have fallen to the ground. In a tree on the left hangs a plaque inscribed OPVS ANTONII POLLAIOLI FLORENTINI.
The Battle of the Nudes is the work of Antonio Pollaiuolo, pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and one of the leading artists of the Florentine Renaissance. Despite his considerable and varied artistic productivity, as painter, sculptor, draughtsman, goldsmith and engraver, only a relatively small number of his works survive to the present day. Although a handful of other prints have been tentatively associated with him, the Battle of the Nudes is the only engraving that can be attributed to Pollaiuolo with certainty. Signed with his full name and the city of his birth, it is the first signed print in the history of Italian art.
Dated around 1470-75, the Battles of the Nudes stands at the beginning of the re-engagement with the classical human figure, so central to ancient Greek and Roman art, and prepared the ground for many of the great works of the High Renaissance, both north and south of the Alps. Echos of it reverberate from the ignudi of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving of Adam and Eve, and many other depictions of the male nude body, in any medium, of the late 15th and 16th centuries and thereafter. The figures of the naked fighters have been copied, borrowed or re-interpreted in a variety of media, either as individual figures, groups or entire battle scenes, by countless artists of subsequent generations. Some 15th century printed copies exist, and as early as around 1500, Dürer used the archer on the upper left as a model for both a drawing (Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, inv. no. AE 383) and a painting of Hercules shooting the Stymphalian Birds (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, inv. no. GM 166). He presumably also borrowed the tablet device in his Adam and Eve from Pollaiuolo’s signature plaque.
While the influence of Pollaiuolo’s creation on European art is undisputed and manifold, the origins and meaning of the print itself are subject to scholarly interpretation, as it lacks any mythological or historical references. The relative flatness of the space, with the dense vegetation in the background, is reminiscent of ancient Roman stone reliefs, as found on sarcophagi, which the artist had undoubtedly seen.
The study of the art of antiquity and of classical nudes was a chief concern for Pollaiuolo’s generation of artists, as for example his own bronze sculpture of Hercules and Antaeus (circa 1478, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence) demonstrates.
It seems curious that the artist did not try to disguise the fact that he had used the same model for each of the fighters. We see his body and face repeated ten times, albeit in a variety of positions and with different expressions. Therein may in fact lie the main purpose of the image: as a study of the male body in motion and from many viewpoints. As such, it may have been intended as a visual argument for the superiority of disegno over scultura (by depicting the same object from several sides at once), and as a working example for pupils and artisans.
While it may have been created for – and certainly did serve – this practical purpose, The Battle of the Nudes is also an expression of tremendous artistic confidence. The majestic scale of the plate, the daring subject, the classical manner, the mastery of observation and execution, and the self-assured declaration of the artist’s identity all make this engraving a landmark of early European printmaking.
In the creation of it, as Alison White wrote, ‘the maestro di disegno seems deliberately concerned to show how an engraving could be raised to the category of a masterwork’ (A. Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome, London, 2005, p. 179). But more than that, Pollaiuolo must have been aware of the power of multiplication when he chose the new medium of engraving to manifest his brilliance and advance his fame.
The Battle of the Nudes is known in two states. Although the first state only survives in a unique example at the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1967.127), early printed copies of the subject suggest, as Shelley Langdale points out, that multiple impressions of the first state were taken and distributed. The plate was then reworked, possibly by Pollaiuolo himself or his workshop with the intention of printing a larger edition, by strengthening or adding some shading to the figures (see S. Langdale, Battle of the Nudes: Pollaiuolo’s Renaissance Masterpiece, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002, pp. 33-35). Of this second state, a total of 49 impressions were known, three of which have been destroyed or lost in World War II (Darmstadt, Gotha, and Bremen), and only four are still in private hands, including the example at Chatsworth (Duke of Devonshire Collection), and the present one, the sale of which offers a rare opportunity to acquire this milestone of the Italian Renaissance.
The Battle of the Nudes is the work of Antonio Pollaiuolo, pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and one of the leading artists of the Florentine Renaissance. Despite his considerable and varied artistic productivity, as painter, sculptor, draughtsman, goldsmith and engraver, only a relatively small number of his works survive to the present day. Although a handful of other prints have been tentatively associated with him, the Battle of the Nudes is the only engraving that can be attributed to Pollaiuolo with certainty. Signed with his full name and the city of his birth, it is the first signed print in the history of Italian art.
Dated around 1470-75, the Battles of the Nudes stands at the beginning of the re-engagement with the classical human figure, so central to ancient Greek and Roman art, and prepared the ground for many of the great works of the High Renaissance, both north and south of the Alps. Echos of it reverberate from the ignudi of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving of Adam and Eve, and many other depictions of the male nude body, in any medium, of the late 15th and 16th centuries and thereafter. The figures of the naked fighters have been copied, borrowed or re-interpreted in a variety of media, either as individual figures, groups or entire battle scenes, by countless artists of subsequent generations. Some 15th century printed copies exist, and as early as around 1500, Dürer used the archer on the upper left as a model for both a drawing (Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, inv. no. AE 383) and a painting of Hercules shooting the Stymphalian Birds (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, inv. no. GM 166). He presumably also borrowed the tablet device in his Adam and Eve from Pollaiuolo’s signature plaque.
While the influence of Pollaiuolo’s creation on European art is undisputed and manifold, the origins and meaning of the print itself are subject to scholarly interpretation, as it lacks any mythological or historical references. The relative flatness of the space, with the dense vegetation in the background, is reminiscent of ancient Roman stone reliefs, as found on sarcophagi, which the artist had undoubtedly seen.
The study of the art of antiquity and of classical nudes was a chief concern for Pollaiuolo’s generation of artists, as for example his own bronze sculpture of Hercules and Antaeus (circa 1478, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence) demonstrates.
It seems curious that the artist did not try to disguise the fact that he had used the same model for each of the fighters. We see his body and face repeated ten times, albeit in a variety of positions and with different expressions. Therein may in fact lie the main purpose of the image: as a study of the male body in motion and from many viewpoints. As such, it may have been intended as a visual argument for the superiority of disegno over scultura (by depicting the same object from several sides at once), and as a working example for pupils and artisans.
While it may have been created for – and certainly did serve – this practical purpose, The Battle of the Nudes is also an expression of tremendous artistic confidence. The majestic scale of the plate, the daring subject, the classical manner, the mastery of observation and execution, and the self-assured declaration of the artist’s identity all make this engraving a landmark of early European printmaking.
In the creation of it, as Alison White wrote, ‘the maestro di disegno seems deliberately concerned to show how an engraving could be raised to the category of a masterwork’ (A. Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome, London, 2005, p. 179). But more than that, Pollaiuolo must have been aware of the power of multiplication when he chose the new medium of engraving to manifest his brilliance and advance his fame.
The Battle of the Nudes is known in two states. Although the first state only survives in a unique example at the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1967.127), early printed copies of the subject suggest, as Shelley Langdale points out, that multiple impressions of the first state were taken and distributed. The plate was then reworked, possibly by Pollaiuolo himself or his workshop with the intention of printing a larger edition, by strengthening or adding some shading to the figures (see S. Langdale, Battle of the Nudes: Pollaiuolo’s Renaissance Masterpiece, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002, pp. 33-35). Of this second state, a total of 49 impressions were known, three of which have been destroyed or lost in World War II (Darmstadt, Gotha, and Bremen), and only four are still in private hands, including the example at Chatsworth (Duke of Devonshire Collection), and the present one, the sale of which offers a rare opportunity to acquire this milestone of the Italian Renaissance.