Lot 459: AFTER A MODEL ATTRIBUTED TO FRANCESCO FANELLI 1577 - AFTER 1657?

VENUS OR AMPHITRITE
brown patina beneath greenish dark brown lacquer, upon later stepped wood base

height excluding base 18 in.; 45.7 cm

bronze

17th century

Krahn 1995, no. 198, pp. 534-536

Cyril Humphris, London

RELATED LITERATURE

Radcliffe and Penny 2004, no. 53; Leithe-Jasper and Wengraf 2004, p. 43, figs. 12-13

The model for the present bronze figure has been variously ascribed to a number of sculptors including Jérôme Duquesnoy, as is the case with the fine bronze version in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, (Leithe-Jasper 1986, op.cit., no. 75 and Krahn 1995, op.cit.,no. 198).

The suggestion that Jérôme Duquesnoy is the author of the model rings true, with a number of supporting considerations. The ample body type seen here is a Northern sculptural propensity. The modification of antique prototypes was a design method employed by Jerôme's brother François Duquesnoy and seen in his figures of Apollo and Mercury. Furthermore, the provenance can be traced to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm to whom Jérôme was court sculptor during Leopold's governorship in Brussels. In style and pose, the Venus could even be a pendant to his brother's Apollo or Mercury, if not for the difference in size. An engraving of Venus and Cupid from the Galerie Girardon entitled "par François Du Quesnoy Flamand" showing Venus with a comparable posture to the present model, further underscores the connection to Jérôme who owned the works left by his brother François who died in 1643.

However, a nearly identical bronze Venus, with the same dimensions as the present bronze and the example in Vienna, recently appeared on the market. The version, now in a private American collection, is inscribed F.F.F. (presumably Franciscus Fanellius Florentinus) on the underside and has now been given to Francesco Fanelli, sculptor to Charles I. Another bronze by Fanelli, with the letters F.F.F. on the underside, is in a private collection, Suffolk, England. Interestingly, it has been cited that the pose of the figure of Venus is analogous to that of the figure of Adam in Fanelli's relief of The Fall of Adam and Eve in the collection of Robert H. Smith (Radcliffe and Penny 2004, op. cit. no. 53) and the facial features can also be linked to some of Fanelli's larger figural bronzes such as a figure of Apollo with his Harp in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a figure of Diana (with a similar body type to the Sackler bronze) formerly in the collection of Baron Hatvany, London. Both of these bronzes have been ascribed to Fanelli in recent years by Wengraf (Wengraf, op. cit., p. 36 and 43).