Lot 80: ATTRIBUTED TO MASSIMILIANO SOLDANI BENZI (1656-1740) ITALIAN, FLORENCE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

FLORA

overall: 44.5cm., 17½in.

bronze, on a wood base

Italian, Florence, early 18th century<BR>After the Antique

Sotheby's London, 3 March 1959, lot 129

Surviving reductions of the classical Flora, after a now much damaged marble in the Boboli Gardens, are in the Residenzmuseum, Munich and the Ross collection, Toronto. Three figures of Flora by Soldani are mentioned in the 1730 inventory of the Elector Palatine.

RELATED LITERATURE
K. Lankheit, 'Eine serie barocker Antiken-Nachbildungen aus der Werkstatt des Massimiliano Soldani', Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 65, 1958, p. 198; C. Avery, 'Soldani's small bronze statuettes after "Old Master" Sculptures in Florence', Studies in European Sculpture, London, 1981, pp. 131-2, fig. 10