Notes
THE MEDICI PIAMONTINI
The importance of this magnificent and unpublished bronze portrait group of Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici on horseback has recently been established due to the discovery of documents which confirm its provenance back to at least 1729. Unrecognised in a private collection, it is now known that the present bronze was purchased by Somerset, 2nd Earl of Belmore - an ancestor of the vendor - from Marchese Luigi Tempi in 1820. The Tempi family had owned the bronze from at least as early as 1729, when they entered it into an exhibition in the church of Santissima Annunziata, Florence. It may also be identical with a bronze first commissioned by Ferdinando himself in 1694 which appeared in an inventory taken at the time of the prince's death in 1713. The bronze is therefore a rare combination of superb craftsmanship, undoubted authorship, and illustrious provenance.
THE PROPERTY OF A FAMILY TRUST
THE STATUETTE
The present bronze statuette, proudly inscribed with its author's name in capitals on the broad girth beneath the saddle shows Ferdinando wearing contemporary full-armour and firmly astride a well-built horse. They are performing the figure of equitation known as the corvette, where the steed is reigned in to balance its weight on the rear fetlocks and raise its forehooves symmetrically. The prince is anchored tightly on its back by a decorated leather saddle set on a cloth - probably faced with velvet and embroidered with gold or silver thread - which is held in place by the wide girth and straps running round the shoulders and breast of his steed, as well as back along its spine to the tail. The rings are individually fashioned and attached to the bit, while the rowels in the spurs strapped to the prince's high riding boots actually revolve. The stirrups too are separately made, which led to the loss of the left-hand one (now replaced). The sword and scabbard are - unusually - made in one piece, slotted realistically through the sword strap and secured by a pin, which allows slight movement. In his lowered right hand the prince holds - rather daintily - his commander's baton. A cloak wound into a spiral runs over his left shoulder, billows out behind, as though responding to the forward motion arrested by the check of rearing upwards, and is loosely knotted behind the right hip. The graceful, flowing tail reaches right down below the ground level of the bronze plinth through which run bolts securing the rear hooves, and yet it does not touch the surface of the wooden pedestal. Its dead weight helps to counterbalance that of the bodies of horse and rider to the other side of the fulcrum provided by the rear hooves, but it does not provide a third point of anchorage, as was often the case with rearing horses (see below, The Equestrian Image).
The details are minutely conveyed: every rivet-head on the plates of armour, every nail fixing the heels to the boots and the horseshoes to the hooves, the line of stitching round the soles of the boots, every buckle and every tassel on the harness is in place. The saddle and its accoutrements are embroidered or stamped in the leather with foliate ornaments while the junctures of the harness are marked with minute masks, a grimacing satyr at the front and a pair of pretty female faces at the sides. The sword-belt and scabbard are fringed, while its handle, hilt and guards are depicted with the skill of an armourer. The face of the prince, beginning to put on a little weight and authority with adulthood, is framed in the curled periwig that was de rigueur at the time. The large, prominent eyes, pricked-up ears and flowing mane and tail of Ferdinando's mount proclaim it as a thoroughbred cavalry horse in the prime of life. By these means Piamontini added a liveliness and a regal lustre to his portrait.
The casting is so expert and the condition of the bronze so good that, through the varnish, which inevitably has darkened with time, one cannot discern the joints between parts that must have been cast separately and then joined mechanically (such as the arms and lower legs of the rider) even if one knows where to look. The only exception is in the case of the horse's left foreleg, where the joint has once sprung apart slightly and has been secured by four cylindrical bronze pegs (some of which may in any case be original).
HISTORY
The project for a bronze equestrian statuette of the prince is first alluded to in an advance payment of 40 scudi made to Piamontini on 6 August 1694 (see Doc. 2, documents are found on pages 34-41). Further advances followed sporadically as work progressed, on 14 August, 6 December 1694 and then on 1 February 1696. The lapse of a whole year was probably occasioned by the lengthy process of casting and finishing the bronze. On 21 May 1695, the sculptor submitted his total bill for 550 scudi, 'for having made the model and for the production in bronze of a horse in the act of rearing, or rather of courbetting, with the figure on top of a portrait representing the same Serene Highness [i.e. Ferdinando], with all its lifelike details, all of which was ordered by same Serene Highness including all my expenses on the bronze and in its manufacture I am owed. [scudi 550 in total].' (see Doc. 1).
Probably owing to the complexity of such an operation, as well as official parsimony, the balance was not finally settled until 22 November 1697. The original wax model was evidently carefully preserved after the moulds for casting into bronze had been taken from it, for it was exhibited as a work of art in its own right a decade later in one of the occasional public art exhibitions held around the feast day of St. Luke, patron of painters, in the Chapel of St. Luke off the cloisters of the church of Santissima Annunziata (see below, The Patron). Catalogues were printed, but in this instance the names of owners were not included (Fig. 1, Doc. 3). Presumably the prince himself may have lent the model as he had paid for it to be produced, unless Piamontini had been allowed to keep it or it had been given away to some courtier. In any case, it is not recorded again and has probably perished, owing to the fragility of wax, which would have been exacerbated in this instance by the complex, vulnerable pose: for a substantial armature of iron rods and wire would have been required inside to support the weight and any vibration or movement would have caused the wax to split off. Transport to and from the art exhibition would indeed have been most hazardous.
The next reference to a bronze equestrian group of Ferdinando by Piamontini is in an inventory that was taken on 9 November 1713, shortly after the prince's premature death (Doc. 4). It is listed immediately after a similar item of more recent manufacture, which could not have been produced before 1709, when its subject visited Florence: 'A bronze figure in full armour on horseback with the portrait of His Majesty Frederick IV King of Denmark, posed on a bronze plinth, and the whole set on a pedestal without mounts of pearwood stained black, about 1 1/3 braccia high [approximately 77 cm] including its base; by the hand of Piamontini.' This entry is followed by: 'One similar in every respect to the above mentioned [figure], with the portrait of the Serene Prince Ferdinando, of Glorious Memory, in armour, the work of the aforesaid Piamontini; it is posed on a similar bronze plinth, and the whole set on a pedestal without mounts of pearwood stained black, about 1 1/3 braccia high including its base.' The two items reappear with identical descriptions among Ferdinando's heirlooms in an inventory of the contents of the General Wardrobe of His Royal Highness taken between 1 January 1715 and 30 October 1717 (Doc. 5).
In 1729, the art exhibition at SS. Annunziata included a 'Group of bronze, which is an equestrian statue of His Royal Highness the Gran Principe Ferdinando by Mr. Giuseppe Piamontini, belonging to the illustrious Marquis Leonardo Tempi' (Fig. 2; Doc. 6). This Leonardo Tempi (1685-1752) had only just succeeded his father, Marquis Lodovico Tempi (b.1651), who had died four years earlier, in 1725. It was presumably Lodovico who acquired the statuette, though one has no idea how. He was scion of a family whose wealth originally came from the woollen industry and who had acquired his title in 1716 by the purchase of some property at Il Barone, near Prato, where he built a luxurious villa (Fig. 3). In 1684 he aspired to marry Maria Maddalena, a daughter of the Albizzi, one of the oldest and once the richest of the noble Florentine families. Lodovico was made Senator in 1698 and appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber by Cosimo III. He was therefore in the upper echelon of the court circle when the statuette was first conceived and may have had some special relationship with Prince Ferdinando.
In an inventory of the contents of the Pitti Palace (formerly residence of the Grand-Duke and now of the Emperor of Austria) on 30 May 1761 there is a further reference to two bronzes of Frederick IV of Denmark, and Ferdinando by Piamontini, however, interestingly, the bronze of Ferdinando is now described as having lost a stirrup ('mancante una staffa', see Doc. 7). In this respect it is similar to the present bronze, where the missing stirrup has only just been made good. However the loss of the same vulnerable little component from each cast may be purely coincidental. Thereafter, many of the contents were illicitly dispersed by the new foreign regime.
In summary, references to a bronze group of Ferdinando de' Medici on horseback by Piamontini - on a similar base and of exactly the same dimensions as the present bronze - appear in the Medici inventory of 1713, as belonging to the Tempi in 1729, in another Medici inventory of 1761, and in the Tempi family again by 1820, as described below. It is, of course, possible that these references all refer to the one bronze offered here, although the transfer of ownership three times between two families seems unlikely. What is more plausible is that the references relate to two bronzes, one formerly in the collection of the Medici which is now lost, and the other given by (or cast by special permission of) the Medici to their courtier, Ludovico Tempi.
It appears then that the Tempi held on to their statuette - the present example - for nearly a century, during the regime of the Dukes of Lorraine who succeeded the Medici in Tuscany. However, in 1820 Luigi, the 7th Marquess of Il Barone (1781-1847), a bachelor Knight of Malta, and last of the male line - was prevailed upon to part with it to the 2nd Earl of Belmore, for 18.6s.8d. A dealer or middleman called Frantz had apparently succeeded in beating Tempi down from his asking price of 50 sequins to 35 (Docs. 8-9). Although Tempi enjoyed important positions at court in Florence during the Napoleonic regime and afterwards, he was more interested in philanthropy and public education than in an art collection, even an ancestral one.
Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl of Belmore (1774-1841, see Fig. 4) had succeeded to his title in 1802 and had been on a Grand Tour in the years immediately before this purchase. He had been round the sights of Egypt with Belzoni, the notorious adventurer, archaeologist and plunderer of antiquities, and shipped back to London a collection of Egyptiana that would be acquired after his death by the British Museum. He had also made the standard visit to Rome, where in 1819 he had ordered a vast assortment of ornamental items in the antique manner for shipping home, including a miniature of Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk, probably more for the sake of the latter (the original of which was of course a genuine Egyptian object covered in hieroglyphs), than for the authorship of the elephant, for Bernini was just then at the nadir of his critical fortunes. Or was Lord Belmore - in defiance of the current taste for neo-classicism - a covert admirer of the drama and excitement of Italian baroque sculpture? Why otherwise would he have wished to acquire the present statuette, with its decidedly baroque silhouette? Nothing could be less austere and classical, in line with the dictates of taste laid down by Winckelman and practised by Canova in Rome, or by Flaxman in London.
Presumably Lord Belmore had seen or been offered the statuette on his way back from Rome, for one can hardly imagine his buying it at 'sight unseen'. In any case he had evidently then instructed James Calvert to have Horace Hall in Florence acquire the piece through the good offices of an intermediary, called Frantz. By 31 October 1820 Calvert had laid hands on statuette and pedestal, paid Frantz and Marchese Tempi, had the bronze crated and transported to the free-port of Leghorn (Livorno) - the normal exit-point from Tuscany, warehoused it there and finally had it loaded - in a case marked with his initials, J + C - on board the good ship Abeona, under the captaincy of Thomas Lewis, bound for the Port of London (Fig. 5, Doc. 8). A fortnight later Calvert had instructed the shipping agents R. & H. Richardson of Fenchurch Street to take the shipment through the customs and see to its forwarding to its destination and was able to inform his patron of this activity by a letter sent from the Tavistock Hotel on 14 November (Fig. 17, Doc. 9).
The fate of the bronze among Lord Belmore's enormous and variegated collection of ancient and contemporary artefacts in his house in Hamilton Place, Park Lane, even whether it was ever displayed, is not known. But after his death in 1841, the 'upholsterers' Robert and James Newton of Wardour Street, Soho, invoiced his successor on 11 October for 'Cleaning up a Bronze Equestrian Figure 6', followed by 4-7s-0d., for producing a facsimile of the original Florentine stained pearwood pedestal, which must have gradually deteriorated through dampness on the voyage or from worming (Doc. 10). After this restoration, the statuette seems to have left London for the Belmore seat at Castle Coole (Fig. 6), where it was next recorded in a photograph published in Country Life in 1936 (Fig. 7). The statuette passed, unrecognised though admired, to a descendant of the 2nd Earl, until it was drawn to the present writer's attention. It has thus only ever had two - or at most three - important and careful families as owners, which accounts for its brilliant state of preservation.
THE PATRON - GRAN PRINCIPE FERDINANDO DE' MEDICI (1663-1713)
Penultimate of the male line, Ferdinando - the intelligent heir-apparent - alas, predeceased his father, the Grand-Duke Cosimo III and his decadent younger brother, Gian Gastone, who ultimately became - childless, feeble and demoralized - the last of the immensely distinguished line of the Medici to rule. Fortunately, he was survived by a sister, Anna Maria Luisa (since 1716 widow of the Elector Palatine). She sensibly provided in her tightly drawn will that all their assembled artistic, scientific and natural treasures should be left inalienably to their native city, thus in 1743 confirming Florence as the veritable 'city of the arts' that we know today.
The late Francis Haskell in his seminal study of art patronage Patrons and Painters (op. cit., pp. 228-41), dedicated no fewer than a dozen densely argued pages to this prince as patron.
'The most important figure in this strange interregnum of Italian art when any overriding sense of direction seemed to have been lost was, appropriately enough, a Medici. For a few years Florence once more became the most interesting city in Italy before sinking into utter provincialism. In the Grand Prince Ferdinand who was responsible for this short-lived but profoundly important revival we can seen, as in no other single figure, the tastes of the seventeenth century changing into those of the eighteenth, and this alone makes him worthy of the closest study. But his significance is greater than that. As a Medici he bore a name that still carries its own magic. And he was a munificent patron when the race seemed to have died out - 'the only support of all the fine arts in Italy', wrote a contemporary. His individual tastes were thus of considerable importance for the development of painting.'
Haskell then proceeds to sum up Ferdinando's background and aspirations with characteristic clarity and wit: 'He was born in 1663, the son of Cosimo III and Margherite d'Orléans. The tempestuous relationship between his parents - his mother, unable to stand the suffocating atmosphere of Florence, left in 1675 for the freedom of a convent in Montmartre which placed few obstacles in the way of her volatile appetites - and the bigoted pomposity of Cosimo himself left its mark on the two sons of the marriage: Ferdinand, who died at 50 before ruling, and Gian Gastone, the last of the Medici princes. Both were highly intelligent, but both had a streak of instability which in Gian Gastone eventually led to paralysing debauchery. Ferdinand was educated by all the most remarkable personalities in a city that was still notable in the intellectual Europe of the day - Viviani, Lorenzini, Redi. He became a highly cultivated and accomplished figure, handsome, good humoured, an excellent horseman and the great hope of all those who longed for a change from the extravagant, yet mean-spirited rule, of his father.'
The present statuette indeed commemorates the prince's horsemanship, as well as - by tradition - furnishing an allegory of Good Government, where a prince disciplines and holds in check the volatile, animal nature of his potentially unruly subjects. Actually, he was in his youth pretty wild himself, just as Charles and James Stuart had been a generation or two earlier in London, as Haskell explains: 'Ferdinand's reaction against his father was one of the dominating emotions of his life. With his uncle Francesco Maria, only three years older than himself, he led the opposition, and, as so often where political activity is out of the question, this took the form of licence and wild behaviour. Accompanied everywhere by troops of followers in search of pleasure, the two young men outraged the solemn decorum of the court.' Even when married, he was particularly naughty during a visit to Venice at carnival time in 1696, but at least this led him during the day time to an appreciation of the still flourishing tradition of painting there, and some meaningful commissions.
'For Ferdinando art patronage involved a greater degree of collaboration than was usual between prince and painter', writes Haskell, and this may well have been the case with the promising young sculptor Piamontini, when he came to commission the bronze equestrian group in 1694. Ferdinando did not turn to the Court Sculptor Giambattista Foggini (1652-1725), who was faithfully serving his own father Cosimo III, but to a newcomer of exactly his own generation, albeit one trained under Foggini (see below, The Sculptor).
Professor Haskell goes on to examine Ferdinando's patronage of Loth, Fumiani and Cassana and of the more prominent Venetian painters, Sebastiano Ricci and Giuseppe Maria Crespi, but, alas, like many an art historian, he completely ignores the prince's intelligent stimulation of sculpture and the decorative arts. He does however draw attention to another aspect that is relevant here: 'Ferdinand's activities as patron were not confined to increasing his own collection or supporting those particular artists who took his fancy. He was also anxious to guide the whole direction taken by painters in the Florence of his day. For this purpose he took advantage of the still rudimentary instrument of the art exhibition and used it in an entirely new way. Pictures had been exhibited in Florence, as in many other Italian cities, on the occasion of the Corpus Domini processions, and Ferdinand regularly showed works painted for him by those artists of whom he approved. But Ferdinand probably found such exhibitions too casual to produce the effect he hoped for, and by 1706 he had already organised something far grander. He had probably picked up the idea from the S. Rocco exhibitions in Venice, though he ran his own one on far more spectacular lines. A printed catalogue was issued - and this in itself was an innovation for Italy. From this catalogue we can reconstruct the event. The exhibition was held on St. Luke's day (18 October) in the chapel dedicated to that saint in the cloisters of the Annunziata. About 250 pictures were shown, nearly all of them borrowed from the great collections of Florence, though none came from the Grand Duke's. The pictures were hung in groups of about eight to ten in the lunettes of the cloister.' (ibid, p. 240)
Haskell's pioneering account must now be modified slightly, for the catalogue of a similar exhibition held in 1705 has come to light since he wrote (Fig. 1). Alongside the pictures, works by just two of the many sculptors active at the time were included; two statues, a relief and two models by Giovanni Battista Baratta; and by Giuseppe Piamontini the wax model for the present statuette, as well as a relief of the Fall of the Giants, wax models for statuettes of Jupiter and Juno to be cast in bronze (for the Jupiter, see Fig. 9), and a bronze statue and a statuette (unspecified). This selection, albeit small in number compared with that of the pictures, indicates Ferdinando's interest in sculpture, as well as an emphasis on sketch-models (this may be deliberate, unless it was dictated merely by their availability from various collections, including his own, or from the youngish sculptors' studios, as being, in effect, duplicates that could be temporarily spared). Haskell concludes: 'The Grand Prince himself attended the exhibition which remained open for several days and was evidently a success. But Ferdinand soon fell seriously ill, and thereafter the Accademia del Disegno, under whose auspices it had been organised, returned to the slumbers which had characterised most of its recent existence. Exhibitions, planned on similar lines, took place at haphazard intervals in 1715, 1724, 1729, 1737 and 1767. But Ferdinand died before any of these'.
In fact, Ferdinando's father Cosimo must be credited with having originally had the foresight to realise that - by the middle of the seventeenth century - the great artistic tradition of Florence was in decline, and - in imitation of the Académie de France, Rome, recently established by King Louis XIV - founded a Medici Academy there to remedy the situation. In terms of sculpture, Cosimo certainly achieved his aim of a startling revival in the persons of Foggini and Soldani, as well as of Piamontini, who all received their grounding there, at the feet of leading Roman sculptors.
At Cosimo's behest, Ferdinando as a teenager was taught the elegant craft of turning ivory on an eccentric lathe - a favourite hobby of grandees, not only in Germany, where it originated, but also even in Florence, where in the late sixteenth century Giambologna's sponsor, Bernardo Vecchietti, performed it in his country villa, Il Riposo. Ferdinando's tutor was a German, Philip Sengher, and fine specimens by both of them were acquired for the nascent Museum of Ornamental Art in London as early as 1865, whence they have descended to the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig. 10). Ferdinando's effort - very creditable for an eighteen year old - is discreetly signed, 'Princeps F[ecit] MDCLXXXI' ('The Prince made this in 1681').
This 'hands-on' experience of working in three dimensions probably imbued the prince with a special sympathy for sculpture in whatever form. Indeed, a contemporary biographer informs us that the Court Medallist (who turned into a brilliant sculptor in bronze), Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1740), 'made for his rulers various works in gold and bronze, but especially for Gran Principe Ferdinando, who loved him tenderly, cracking jokes with him in a most familiar way, and hanging about in his beautiful studio, for as long as he lived'. Ferdinando must therefore have been well aware of the popularity of Soldani's work with foreign rulers too, particularly at this date with Prince Johann Adam of Liechtenstein, who built up an extraordinarily fine collection of Soldani's bronzes, after the Antique, after Michelangelo and of his own design. To these the present Reigning Prince has recently added that crowning glory of late Florentine Baroque art, the 'Badminton Cabinet' (Fig. 11). Ferdinando also favoured another sculptor, Giovacchino Fortini (1671/2-1736), commissioning him to produce an impressive, quasi-regal, portrait bust (Fig. 8). Fortini also made two bronze medals depicting the bluff features of Marchese Lodovico Tempi, one of which shows on its reverse the façade of his grand new Villa of Il Barone (Fig. 3). Lodovico was probably the first owner of the present bronze statuette depicting the Gran Principe in all his splendour, before it was inherited by Lodovico Tempi, who owned it at the time of the exhibition in SS. Annunziata of 1729.
THE SCULPTOR - GIUSEPPE PIAMONTINI
Giuseppe Piamontini was - after Foggini - the most distinguished sculptor of the late Baroque school in Florence. Born there in 1664 he was apprenticed to Foggini and by the age of fourteen had already come to the notice of Prince Ferdinando, carving for him a group in marble. Two years later Piamontini was chosen by the Grand Duke to attend the new Medici Academy in Rome, like Foggini and Soldani before him, and he worked under Ercole Ferrata. He was particularly to study antiquities - probably in order to learn how to restore them effectively, a major concern at this period. The Academy closed in 1686 and on his return home Piamontini was furnished with a studio and a salary, marks of official esteem. He became a productive sculptor in marble and bronze, employed by Florentine churches and Grand Tourists visiting from abroad, including the King of Portugal (St. Luke (1732) in the church of the palace at Mafra). His biographer, Gabburri, also mentions 'many Bronzes that are in the famous and truly regal apartment which once belonged to the late lamented Serene Highness, Prince Ferdinando of Tuscany'. Among these was, of course, the Medici example of the present equestrian composition. Writing in the 1680s, Baldinucci accorded the young Piamontini some thirty lines at the end of his life of Ferrata. He singles out the sculptor's early masterpiece, a small figure of the Dead Christ, carved out of alabaster, which the Grand Duke had had placed beneath the altar table of his private chapel in the Pitti Palace (Garstang, 1988, p. 180, fig. 3). Baldinucci also noted, 'four beautiful busts of women, with flowing decorations by way of coiffures and graceful drapery', that Piamontini carved for the Gran Principe in early 1689 (Montagu, 1974, op. cit., figs. 3, 23).
To Jennifer Montagu, the most distinguished English scholar of Italian baroque sculpture, is owed the seminal article for subsequent studies, 'Some small sculptures by G.B. Piamontini' (1974). She was the first to attribute to Piamontini the particular models of Jupiter and Juno that were - unknown to her at the time - exhibited in 1705 and are now to be found as bronze statuettes in the museums of Philadelphia and Oxford. Dr. Montagu also published the archival references of 1713 and 1761 to Piamontini's bronze statuettes of Ferdinando and of King Frederick IV of Denmark (Docs. 4 and 7). Unaware of the earlier documents, however, she opined that both might date from the King's visit in 1709, whereas we now know that the equestrian portrait of the Gran Principe was completed a whole decade earlier. Dr. Montagu also took issue with an identification proposed by Klaus Lankheit in his great work on Florentine late Baroque sculpture of 1962 (op. cit., p. 167) between this archival information and a statuette of a broadly similar description in the Prado Museum, Madrid: she adduced a distinct discrepancy of measurements (64/65 cm. for the Prado bronze, as opposed to 74cm. in the document), as well as of likeness, in the features of its portrait head. The emergence of the present candidate, with its firm Tempi provenance, artist's signature and a face that does resemble other images of Ferdinando, proves that her scepticism was justified. In fact, the horse in the Madrid bronze is not especially close to the ones by Foggini to which Lankheit was comparing it, notably that ridden by King Carlos II of Spain in Foggini's statuette of 1690 that is also in the Prado (Fig. 14; see also Brook, loc. cit.).
Piamontini went on to great achievements by way of bronze statuettes, notably two that he made in the 1720s for Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Ferdinando's sister (Montagu, 1976, loc. cit.), but none was finer than his inspired early masterpiece depicting the Gran Principe on horseback.
THE EQUESTRIAN IMAGE
The revival of the full-size equestrian statues of Antiquity was one of the greatest technical and artistic achievements of the early Renaissance in Italy. The principal survivals were the statues of Marcus Aurelius (AD 166-80) - then regarded as Constantine - on the Capitol in Rome; the Regisole (Sun-king) in Pavia (destroyed in 1796); and the four horses on the façade of St. Mark's Venice (looted in 1204 from the Hippodrome in Constantinople). These lay behind the pioneering statues of contemporary mercenary commanders in the service of the Serenissima that were produced by Donatello in Padua (1453) and Verrocchio in Venice (1495). Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rustici, Leone Leoni and Guglielmo della Porta all planned similar - though more ambitious - variations on the theme. Only some of these reached fruition and all are now lost. The first great horse monuments of the 16th century to survive are those by Giambologna and his followers in Florence (Cosimo I de' Medici (1594); Ferdinando I: bronze statuette in the Liechtenstein Collection, Vaduz/Vienna (1600), and a statue in Piazza SS. Annunziata (1601-8)). Others were sent to Paris (King Henri IV) and Madrid (King Philip III), while a French imitator, Hubert le Sueur, produced one of King Charles I in London. This tradition has continued unabated into the 20th century.
Even more challenging to the sculptor, however, is the rearing equestrian figure, when he has only two legs on which to support the great weight of man and beast, and the problem of distributing that weight evenly about the fulcrum of the rear hooves. The horse's tail was sometimes used, if made long enough, to provide a third point of anchorage (as in Falconet's enormous statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, 1782). Antonio Pollaiuolo was the first to propose such a daring project to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and after his death Leonardo continued to contemplate such a feat in a monument projected for Count Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, but he did not have a chance to bring it to fruition: in any case both artists were forced to 'cheat', by providing support for the rearing horse in the shape of a fallen warrior. During the 16th century other rearing statues were realised only temporarily or partially and in any case have not survived.
It was in Florence, around 1600, that the fascination with rearing equestrian figures once more took hold. Pietro Tacca (1577-1640), successor to Giambologna as court sculptor to the Medici, produced large, handsome bronze statuettes of this sort depicting King Louis XIII (Fig. 13, c.1615, Florence, Bargello) and of Charles Emanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1619-21; Kassel, Lowenburg). Tacca was, however, beaten to the post in creating such a statue on a monumental scale by Caspar Gras, an Austrian sculptor much influenced by Giambologna, who succeeded in erecting a rearing equestrian image of Archduke Leopold V over a fountain in the Rennweg, Innsbruck, by 1630. Tacca went on with assistance from his son Ferdinando (the next Medici court sculptor) to create a rearing monument to Philip IV, King of Spain, in the Plaza de Oriente, Madrid (1634-40) which, in view of its illustrious subject, was highly influential.
The master of the Baroque, Gianlorenzo Bernini, addressed the subject twice - though in marble - following Tacca in having his riders on rearing horses. His statue of Constantine the Great (1654-70) dramatically invigorates the arch at the end of the portico of St. Peter's, Rome; strongly illuminated by concealed but natural light, its white marble contrasts with a background of a billowing curtain sculpted from coloured stone. The statue is supported from behind. However, when Bernini wished to portray Louis XIV, King of France, on a rearing steed, he had to resort to supporting the horse's belly with an outcrop of rocks. This did not turn out happily, and the King rejected the final statue. Louis XIV reverted to the more pacific, walking horse for the series of great bronze monuments with which he began from 1685 to promote his image throughout the great cities of France. Thereafter equestrian monuments became a normal appurtenance of the city square, with many variations on the theme, particularly for modern equivalents of conquering Roman generals, such as the Duke of Wellington or Giuseppe Garibaldi, or for the crowned heads of Europe.
The rearing equestrian statue remained a rarity, though after the success of Tacca's monument to Philip IV in Madrid, the Spanish crown continued to promote this sort of image. A monumental one of King Carlos II was designed by Giacomo Serpotta (1656-1732) for casting in Palermo and erection in Messina in 1684. Alas it was melted down for cannon in 1848 and is known only from a rare, old engraving. It shows that the king was performing the same figure of equitation as Gran Principe Ferdinando in the present statuette. The same monarch commissioned the Grand Ducal studio in Florence in June 1676 to produce a similar equestrian figure for Madrid, on an elaborate pedestal with several subsidiary figures round its pedestal. Some drawings and probably a model of the horse and rider were prepared, but the project was cancelled in October the same year. A decade later, in 1698, the papal nuncio to Florence, on being transferred to Madrid, commissioned from Foggini an equestrian statuette of Carlos II to take with him as a gift and it remains in Madrid (Fig. 14). As one now knows, this was actually after the production by Piamontini of the present composition in wax and in bronze. The latter will need henceforth to be taken into consideration in any further discussions about the various designs for the abandoned monument and for Foggini's statuette, as well as several similar later versions made for different patrons.
The present statuette is therefore one of the last of the Florentine line of rearing equestrian portraits that had begun tentatively in the Renaissance with Bertoldo, Pollaiolo and Leonardo da Vinci and then been refined by Giambologna and Pietro Tacca in the ensuing phases of Mannerism and Baroque, before being revitalized in the 17th century by Bernini and Foggini, finally to be exploited by Piamontini in this memorable image of Gran Principe Ferdinando de' Medici.
CHARLES AVERY
DOCUMENTS
1/
Official statement of Gran Principe Ferdinando's account with Giuseppe Piamontini, 21 May 1695
Filza di conti stati fatti dalla Camera del Serenissimo Gran Principe Ferdinando di Toscana et aggregati a questa Guardaroba [...], 1693-1711
ASF, Guardaroba medicea 1073bis
[folio 1504]
Conto 21 Maggio 1695 no. 161
135 Il Serenissimo Prencipe Ferdinando d'Toschana
Gioseppe Piamontini deve
Scudi 156-
Camera
a Gioseppe Piamontini schultore per avere fatto
il modello e l'opera d'bronzo d'un Cavallo in
atto d'portata o' vero corvetta con la fighura
sopra ritratto rapresentante la medesima A[ltezza] S[erenissim]a
con tutti suoi finimenti al naturale cosi
tutto d'ordine della medesima A[ltezza] Se[erenissi]ma d'
tutte mie spese in bronzo e fatture devo
avere schudi dugento ottanta scudi 280-
[different handwriting] Il quad o Camera 4 tara scudi 20-
scudi 260-
E più per altro Conto tarato in questo scudi 110-
E più per altro simile conto tarato in q.o scudi 180-
scudi 550-
E più si detrae il conto ricevuto dalla Camera scudi 150-
Resta scudi 400-
al q. 113[?]
2/
Justification of account with Piamontini recording advances made to him between 6 August 1694 and 22 November 1697
ASF, Guardaroba medicea 1073bis
[folio 1505]
Nota d'Denari riceute a chonto
del Cavallino d'bronzo d' S[ua] A[ltezza] S[erenissima]
a d' 6 Aghosto 1694
riceuto a chonto scudi 40-
a 14 sud[ett]o
riceuto a chonto scudi 30-
a 6 10bre
riceuto come sopra
Primo feb[brai]o 1696
riceuto a chonto come sopra scudi 60-
d'ferro scudi 150-
[different handwriting] Al quad[ern]o Camera 4
per un conto de 22 Mag[gi]o 1695 di scudi 280-
per altro conto de 22 9bre 1697 scudi 130-
410-
si detrae li contanti rice-
uti conto come sopra scudi 150-
scudi 260-
3/
Catalogue of an art exhibition held under the auspices of Gran Principe Ferdinando in the Chapel of St. Luke (chapel of the guild of artists) in the cloisters of Santissima Annunziata, 1705 (Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence):
Nota de' Quadri che sono esposti per la Festa Di S Luca, Dagli Accademici Del Disegno, l'Anno 1705, (exh. cat.), Florence, 1705.
'Il Serenissimo Principe a cavallo di cera.'
4/
Post Mortem Inventory of the collection of Gran Principe Ferdinando de' Medici, 9 November 1713
Inventario dei Mobili, e Masserizie della Proprietà del Ser[enissi]mo Sign[no]r Principe Ferdinando di Gloriosa Ricordanza, ritrovato doppo da di lui morte nel suo appartamento nel Palazzo de' Pitti, e sono l'appresso cioè, 9 November 1713.
ASF, Guardaroba medicea 1222
[folio 14 verso]
Jesus Maria 1713
Segue come di là:
[in the margin:] p:o20
[...]
(Una Figura a cavallo di bronzo tutta armata, del ritratto della Maestà di
Federigo 4.o Re di Danimarcha, posa sopra di un piano di bronzo simile,
rapportato il tutto sopra di una base scorniciata di pero tinto di nero, alto
con la base B[racci]a 1 1/3 in circa; di mano d[e]l Piamontini __________n.o 1)
Una in tutto simile alla suddetta, del ritratto del Ser[erenissi]mo P[rinci]pe Ferdinando
di G[loriosa] M[emori]a armato, opera del sudd[ett]o Piamontini; posa sopra
di un piano di bronzo simile, rapportato il tutto sopra di una base scorniciata
di pero tinto di nero, alto con la base b[raccia] 1 1/3 in circa __________n.o 1
[...]
[Christie's would like to thank Prof. Alvar Gonzales Palacios for confirming the existence of this entry in the Medici Archives]
5/
Register of the Guardaroba medicea recording entry of the bronze statuette, 1 January 1715
Quaderno della Guardaroba Generale delle Robe Fabbricate di Sua Altezza Reale, E primo, 1 January 1714 [ab Incarnatione = 1715 modern style] - 30 October 1717
ASF, Guardaroba medicea 1226
[folio 1 verso]
A di primo Genn[ai]o 1714 [ab Incarnatione = 1715 modern style]
Appresso si noteranno tutte le robe pervenute in questa Guardaroba Generale della
Proprietà del Ser[enissi]mo Gran' Pr[inci]pe Ferdinando di
G[loriosa] Ricordanza sino sotto di 9 8bre 1713 et altri suoi veri giorni come
si vede distintamente da un Inventario originale il quale esiste nell'Archivio
della Guardaroba Generale e prima: [...]
[folio 20 verso]
Segue dal eredità dell Ser[enissi]mo Pr[inci]pe F[erdinand[o di G[loriosa]:
M[emoria] come di là:
[...]
Una figura a cavallo di bronzo tutta armata dell ritratto della Maestà di Federigo 4:o
Re di Danimarca posa sopra di un piano di bronzo simile rapportato il tutto
sopra d'una base scorniciata di pero tinto di nero alto con la base B[racci]a
1 1/3 in circa; di mano dl' Piamontino n.o 1
Una in tutto smile alla suddetta del' ritratto d[e]l Ser[enissi]mo Pr[inci]pe
Ferd[inand]o di G[loriosa]:M[emoria] tutto armato opera dell suddetto
Piamontini; posa sopra di un piano di bronzo simile rapportato il tutto
sopra di una base scorniciata di pero tinto di nero alto con la base
B[racci]a 1 1/3 in circa n.o l
[...]
6/
Catalogue of an art exhibition held at SS. Annunziata, Florence, in 1729
Nota de' Quadri E Opere di Scultura Esposti per la Festa Di S Luca, Dagli Accademici Del Disegno, Nella loro Cappella, e nel Chiostro secondo del Convento de' PP. della SS. Nonziata de Firenze l'Anno 1729, (exh. cat.), Florence, 1729.
'Gruppo di bronzo, che è una statua equestre del R[eale] A[ltezza] del Gran Principe Ferdinando del Sig. Giuseppe Piamontini dell'Illustre Sig. Marchese Leonardo Tempi.'
7/
Inventory of the contents of Palazzo Pitti, 30 May 1761
Inventario Generale dei Mobili, e di tutt'altro, che si trova nell'Imperial' Palazzo de' Pitti di Firenze, fatto per la Consegna data a Carlo Gilles Guardaroba del medesimo a tutto il dì 30 Maggio 1761 da Carlo Guasconti, e Lorenzo Benvenuti, in ordine al Motuproprio de' 14 Giugno 1758 dell'Imperial consiglio di Finanze
ASF, Guardaroba medicea appendice 94
Folio 491 verso
[...]
Una figura a Cavallo di Bronzo alta con la base Braccia 1 1/3 in
circa di mano del Piamontini rappresentante in abito
armato il Ritratto del Serenissimo Principe Ferdan-
do, mancante una staffa posa sopra di un piano di
bronzo simile, rapportato il tutto sopra d'una base
scorniciata di Pero tinto di nero.
[...]
8/
Letter from Horace Hall, Florence, to J. Calvert Esq. At Sir John Bell's, London (enclosed with Calvert's to Belmore, see below).
Florence 31. Oct. 1820
J. Calvert Esq.
Dear Sir,
As soon as I received your [received your] esteemed favor of 19. Ult. - I set about executing your commission and have the pleasure of answering to you that I have succeeded in obtaining the Bronze Figure for 35 sequins although the original demand was 50 - but after having satisfied Frantz, made the case, packed it and sent it to Leghorn, you will perceive that the whole charge swells up as per note to L[ire] 550 - or Pauls 825 - which at 45 Pauls per Pound Sterling make ---- 18.6.8.
for which my uncle has drawn upon you a small Bill at Sight to the order of Messrs. Heath, Son & Furze. Enclosed you have the Bill of Lading of the above Bronze in a case marked J + C No. 1, which has been loaded on board the Abeona Capt. Thos. Lewis -
Believe me
Dear Sir Your most obl[ig]ing
Horace Hall
T.T.Y.C.
Paid Frantz for Marquis Tempi L466..13..4
" Ditto for brokerage "46..13..4
" Carpenter for Case & packing "22..-..-
" freighted to Leghorn "4..-..-
" Wharfage, boatage & porterage "4..6..8
Commission & warehouse to the ship
pers in Leghorn "6..6..8
_________
L550..-..-
Pauls 825..-..-
at the exchange of 45 Pauls p. :Stg. 18..6..8
(Received from the Earl of Belmore
a check for the above amount
J. Calvert
London 15 Nov 1820)
9/
Letter from James Calvert to Lord Belmore, 14 November 1820
Tavistock Hotel
Tuesday, 14 Nov.
The Right Hon ble
Earl of Belmore
My Lord,
I have the pleasure to enclose a letter from my friend at Florence which will acquaint Your Lordship of the purchase he has succeeded in making of the Bronze Equestrian Figure, for the cost of which I have paid his... 18.6.8. Although I do not expect to leave England for some weeks, yet as my stay is uncertain and it will, at any rate, be necessary to employ an agent to Retire [sic, for 'retrieve'?] and pay the duty on the package when it may arrive, I have thought it best in order not to occasion Your Lordship any trouble about it to put the Bill of Lading at once into the hands of the shipping agents whose card of address is enclosed, and whom I have instructed to acquaint Your Lordship of the vessel's arrival as soon as she makes her appearance, and to do all that may be further necessary in the business, which I hope Your Lordship will approve of.
Having lately been settling my accounts with Sir Thomas Bell to whom my House remitted a bill of 101.14 drawn upon Mr. Spiller, which I find remains in a state of suspense, I take the liberty of mentioning the circumstance and of requesting Your Lordship will do me the favor to inform me which Items of the account have been either erroneously or improperly charged, in order that they may be corrected and the affair placed in order - I know of one sum which I believe has been charged to your Lordship's debit (but at the time by the desire of Mr. Black) viz 354.3.8. by order of Messrs. Niven Kerr & C [?], which they have not since claimed and therefore I presume they must have received themselves the amount from Your Lordship. Pray pardon the trouble I occasion, and offering my respectful compliments to Lady Belmore.
I beg to remain, my Lord
Your Lordship's
faithful & obedient servant
Jas Calvert
R. & H. Richardson
Shipping agents & Brokers
No. 3 Howford Buildings
Fenchurch Street
Mr. Calvert for
Bronze figure
18.6.8. paid
by Check'
10/
Belmore Archives, Belfast. R. and J. Newton of Wardour Street, Soho, London account with Lord Belmore, 11 October 1841
Cleaning up a Bronze Equestrian Figure 6
A black ebonized pedestal for the equestrian figure shaped moulded and pannelled [sic] to pattern of the old one and polished 4-7-0.
[Christie's would like to thank Dr. Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato for checking and transcribing the documents cited above from the Archivio dello Stato, Florence.]
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
