Lot 114: FRANCESCO BERTOS (1678-1741), ITALIAN, VENICE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

FRANCESCO BERTOS (1678-1741), ITALIAN, VENICE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY HYLONOME RESTRAINED white marble 77 by 53cm., 30¼ by 20 7/8 in.

Unpublished and in excellent condition, this impressive marble group representing Hylonome Restrained is an important addition to the oeuvre of Francesco Bertos. It is probable that it originally formed a pendant to a marble group of Cyllarus Wounded by Lapith; possibly the one acquired by Peter the Great in 1722, now in The State Hermitage Museum.

The earliest recorded sculpture by Bertos is a marble group, described as the Rape of Deianeira in a 1715 account of the collection of the Venetian Antonio Manin. It is now thought that this group can be identified as a marble of Cyllarus Wounded by Lapiths. Manin was Bertos's first major patron and in the Galleria di Groppi di Marmo in his Venetian palace there were no less than 6 marble groups. Amongst these were noted 'two rapes of centuars', which must surely be identifiable with Cyrallus and the present Hylonome Restrained. In a 1742 inventory this pair is listed with the price of 160 ducats, the same as all the other four together.

One of the two known versions of Cyrallus, sold in Sotheby's New York in 1996 and now in a private collection in New York (Avery, no.40) , is initialled FB, confirming the attribution to Bertos of this and its pendant Hylonome Restrained. These typically obscure Bertosian subjects were first discussed by W.L. Hildburgh in 1941, who gifted his example of Hylonome (Avery, no.39) to the Victoria and Albert Museum two years later. The story of the Lapiths and the centaurs comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses (12:393ff). Hylonome was the wife of the centaur Cyllarus. Invited to the wedding of the Lapiths Hippodamia and Pirithous, Cyrallus and the other centaurs were attacked during the festivities. Hylonome rushed to Cyrallus's assistance, but when he was killed she took her own life with the same javelin.

The composition of Hylonome was clearly regarded as one of Bertos's finest as Agostino Fasolato, his most talented follower, chose it to reproduce (with some variations) in marble, now in the Museo Civico, Padua. Fasolato's group in turn was reproduced at the Este ceramic factory. The choice of the Cyrallus group (Avery, no.41) for the collection of Peter the Great also reflects the acclaim of this pair. That marble was one of many major works by leading Venetian sculptors which Peter the Great acquired through his agent, Savva Ragusinskii from 1716 to 1725. This Venetian collection for Russia comprised no less than 70 statues and 100 busts destined for the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg and for the palace at Peterhof. The Cyrallus group is the only work by Bertos documented as being acquired during Peter the Great's spending spree. However, a marble by Bertos of Hercules wrestling with the Arcadian stag (Avery, no.36) is in the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg and is seemingly undocumented, so it is not impossible that either the present (or the V&A) group of Hylonome may once have formed a rightful pair with the Cyrallus owned by Peter the Great.

RELATED LITERATURE
C. Avery, The Triumph of Motion: Francesco Bertos (1678-1741) and the art of Sculpture. Catalogue Raisonné, Turin 2008, pp.177-178; S. Androsov, Pietro il Grande: Collezionista d'arte Veneta, Venice 1999;
W.L. Hildburgh, 'A marble group by Francesco Bertos', Apollo, XXIV, 1941, p.71-72