Lot 466: GIUSEPPE PIAMONTINI

PAN AND SYRINX

height of Pan 14 1/2 in., height of Syrinx 16 1/8 in.; 36.8 cm, 40.9 cm

bronze

<P>circa 1700</P>

Heim Autumn 1970, nos. 75 and 76

Montagu 1974, p. 11, fig. 20 (illus.); Pratesi 1993, vol. III, no. 440 (illus.); Leithe-Jasper and Wengraf 2004, p. 260; Zikos 2005, nos. 32 and 33 (illus.)

Heim Gallery, London

RELATED LITERATURE

Lankheit 1962, pp. 165?8; Detroit 1974, pp.90-95

Giuseppe Piamontini was, with his master Giovanni Battista Foggini, one of the most distinguished sculptors of the Florentine late Baroque school patronized by Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici. This pair of bronzes, which are apparently the only known casts, have superbly wire brushed and tooled surfaces with rich patina and are extraordinary examples of Piamontini's work. The range of chasing in the figures' hair, the tree stump, the matt punching and striations in the bases and the fluid handling of the drapery coupled with the facial types including Pan's puffed cheeks and the carefully chased eyes lids of slight attenuated form, are all consistent with his work in Florence around 1700.

Previously ascribed to Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi, Montagu (Montagu 1974, op. cit., p.11) has given this pair to Piamontini and subsequent scholars like Zikos (Zikos 2005, p.50) have accepted this opinion. Her attribution was based on a comparison with a then lost bronze Faun Carrying a Satyr (now in a private collection, London, fig.1), noted in the 1713 posthumous inventory of Prince Ferdinando de' Medici. The model for that group, 'un Fauno che porta un Satiro sulle spalle' (Lankheit 1982, op. cit., p. 109) was only known in a Doccia porcelain group in the Museo Civico, Turin.

The most illuminating comparisons can be made with two large bronze groups of a Faun and Satyr, one previously mentioned in a private collection and the other cast of which is in the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachussets. The Sackler bronzes are similar in the balletic positioning of the arms and the faces of the satyrs. The relationship of the present bronzes to Piamontini's Faun and Kid in the Bargello, Florence which, while significantly larger like the Faun and Satyr groups, might indicate an early date for the present pair, as the physiognomy and graceful gestures display the influence of Foggini, Piamontini's master.

This pair of bronzes illustrates a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses (I, 793-820). The nymph Syrinx was pursued by the amorous Pan as far as the river Ladon, where she begged her sisters of the river to help her across. Thinking that he had caught Syrinx, Pan reached for her and unexpectedly found he was holding a bunch of tall reeds. Pan later fashioned his pipes from these reeds. In several depictions, Pan rushes towards Syrinx, urged on by the Cupid holding an arrow and a burning torch.