DOORKNOCKER IN THE FORM OF A SEA HORSE
PADUA – NORTH ITALY
EARLY 16th CENTURY
Bronze, iron, lead
16 cm x 28,5 cm x 10 cm
Provenance:
Collection of the Duc d’Arenberg, Monaco.
This beautiful bronze, originally a doorknocker, suggests the sophistication that the Italian aristocracy brought into decorative details to their palaces.
The quality of the carving, the originality of the invention enables us to attribute this bronze to a paduan workshop of the beginning of the XVI century strongly influenced by the art of the great local sculptor Andrea Briosco called Riccio (1478-1532).
Another version of this Sea Horse was in the Warneck Collection, which was sold in Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 3 and 4 May 1905 reproduced in the catalogue under the number 142 with an attribution to Bertoldo, surmounted by a male figure representing Arion (fig.1).
The weight caused by lead in the body of the bronze confirms the utilitarian function from this work. Its patina witnesses of a long outdoor exposure.
Riccio was born around 1470 in Padua and died in the same town in 1532. He was the student of Bartoloméo Bellano. He worked for the Santo in Padua, made a monument for the Abbott Antonio Trombetta and consecrated nine years of his life for the elaboration for a monumental Easter Candelar (1507-1516). He realised for the church Santa Maria dei Servi in Venice, four reliefs in bronze now in the Correr Museum. He went in 1516-1521 to Verona to execute for the sacristy of San Fermo Maggiore, the monument of Girolamo and Marc Antonio Della Torre, of which we can admire the eight reliefs in the Louvre.
