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Lot 124: [ ITALIAN MEDALS ]

Est: £6,000 GBP - £8,000 GBPSold:
Morton & EdenLondon, United KingdomDecember 09, 2009

Item Overview

Description

LEONE LEONI (c. 1509-1590) Martin de Hanna (1473-1553), bronze medal, MARTINVS DE HANNA, bust right wearing gown, rev., SPES MEA IN DEO EST (My hope is in God), draped figure of Hope standing right, raising her hands to rays issuing from clouds; signed below, LEO, 70.5mm (Attwood 11; Armand I, 165, 13; Bargello 715; Panvini Rosati 176; Johnson/Martini 2264-6; Toderi/Vannel 41; Scher 49; Börner 736), slight wear on the high points but an extremely fine contemporary cast, with the guidance lines for the inscriptions on the original model still visible and with dark brown patina

Artist or Maker

Provenance

Provenance: Peter Tillou; The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 8 December 2005, lot 12. As Attwood relates, Martin de Hanna was a wealthy Flemish merchant who settled in Venice and, in December 1538, purchased a palace on the Grand Canal adorned with frescoes by Pordenone. He was granted Venetian citizenship in 1545. Leoni, generally considered the most celebrated sixteenth century Italian medallist, visited Venice in 1544 and was probably introduced to Martin de Hanna by Titian. He was again in Venice in 1546 and he could have produced this and the other medals of the Hanna family in either year. Hill (in A Guide to the Exhibition of Medals of the Renaissance in the British Museum, London, 1923, p. 47 and fig. 55) wrote that 'the modelling of the face (of Martin de Hanna) is surpassed by nothing else from the artist's hand.'

Auction Details

The Stack Collection Important Renaissance Medals & Plaquett

by
Morton & Eden
December 09, 2009, 10:30 AM GMT

Sotheby's 34-35 New Bond Street, London, LDN, W1S 2RT, UK