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Dimensions: measurements note 58.5cm., 23in.
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Provenance: Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 11 April 1990, lot 37
With Daniel Katz, London, 1990-1991, from whom acquired by the present owner
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Notes: This bust is amongst the most important Florentine sculptures of the Cinquecento to be offered in recent years. At first sold with a vague attribution to Baccio Bandinelli or his pupil Vincenzo de' Rossi (Christie's, London, 11 April 1990, lot 37), the present bust is instead a characteristic example of Bandinelli's autograph style. Particularly telling are the calligraphically shaped, slightly curved strands of hair, which tightly follow the surface of the head and the neck, and pile up above the forehead. A virtually identical treatment of the hair can be seen in Bandinelli's figure of Adam for the Florence cathedral, now in the Bargello (fig. 1), and in his Bacchus, in the Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti. Lines of small drillholes between the curls, present especially on the proper right of the Ancient Hero's hair, recur in many of Bandinelli's figures, for instance in his Eve (Bargello). An especially idiosyncratic detail of Bandinelli's heads is the manner in which the individual strands of hair are coiled in at the tips with a snake-like liveliness. The plastically modelled and extremely expressive face is closely comparable to the figure of Cacus from the group Hercules and Cacus, which Bandinelli erected in 1534 as a counterpart for Michelangelo's David. In its expressiveness, with a truly three dimensionally articulated form, the Bust of an Ancient Hero is a masterpiece of Renaissance physiognomic studies. It is a testimony to the profound influence, that the hellenistic Laocoon group had upon Bandinelli, who restored the ancient original and made a to-scale marble copy of it (Uffizi, Florence) in the early 1520s. As the construction, with a central vertical buttress and hollowed out sides on the back underneath the shoulders' termination, shows, this bust was never intended to be part of a larger figure, but it was originally made as an autonomous work of art. Very possibly it was intended to be placed above a door, a typical setting for Renaissance all'antica busts. From a lower viewpoint, the Ancient Hero's imposing and commanding attitude appears particualrly pronounced. Without doubt, these character traits would have symbolically referred to the bust's patron and owner, or would have at least reminded him of the Renaissance ruler's virtues such as 'fierezza' and 'prontezza'. It was previously suggested that the Bust of an Ancient Hero may represent Hercules. This is unlikely, since this particular hero was usually represented with an abundantly grown, full beard, not with a moustache and a goatee, and shallow sideburns. But the bare chest and the thin headband (taenia), which is visible on the sides and the back of his coiffure, clearly identify him as an ancient king or hero. As the long hair in the neck and the fierce physiognomy indicate, Bandinelli may have been inspired by an ancient Hellenistic or imperial Roman representation of Barbarian king. Most interestingly, Bandinelli's pupil Battista Lorenzi (c. 1528-1594) sculpted a Bust of an Ancient Hero based on the very same model used by his teacher, but wearing a Roman military armour with paludamentum (fig. 2). The present wheareabouts of this bust are unknown, but it was photographed in a Florentine private collection in the first half of the 20th century (see Schmidt, op. cit.). The clothing confirms that the ancient personality was seen as a Roman and not as a Barbarian in the 16th century. Above all, Lorenzi's reuse of his teacher's model further supports Bandinelli's authorship of the Barbara Piasecka Johnson bust, as the stylistic differences and specificities of both sculptors are all too evident, even if Lorenzi's bust is presently known only through its photograph. RELATED LITERATURE
L.A. Waldman, Baccio Bandinelli and the Medici court: a corpus of early modern sources, Philadelphia, Pa., 2004; E.D. Schmidt, 'La ritrattistica nella scultura fiorentina tra Michelangelo e Pietro Tacca,' Pietro Tacca: Carrara, la Toscana, le grandi corti europee, exh. cat., Carrara, Centro Internazionale delle Arti Plastiche, 2007, pp. 40-53; N. Hegener, Divi Iacobi Eques: Selbstdarstellung im Werk des Florentiner Bildhauers Baccio Bandinelli, Berlin, 2008.
