Beni Culturali Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Venus Chastising Cupid

Venere castiga Amore - Venus chastising Cupid
Object belonging
One's own
Category
Bronze sculpture
City
Rome
Location
Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia
Specific location
Room 17
Inventory
PV 09300
Material and technique
Bronze, natural yellowish patina, blackish light lacquer
Author
Niccolò Roccatagliata and Sebastian Nicolini (studio)
Dating
c. 1600
Dimensions
19.6 x 8 x 9 cm.
Origin
Barsanti Collection (1934)
Image copyright
SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

In the various catalogues for the exhibition of Italian Renaissance Bronzes in London, Amsterdam and Florence (1961-1962), differences in opinion are recorded on this bronze’s author. In the English catalogue, the statue is assigned to an unknown Venetian artist of around 1575, the same artist who modelled the Three Graces of the Galleria Estense in Modena. In the Dutch catalogue, a consonance with the modelling of the group of Three Graces in Modena (assigned to Niccolò Roccatagliata) was acknowledged, but the work was attributed to Giovanni Francesco Susini, who was also considered the author of the Putti Playing in a Shell. The Italian catalogue of the exhibition, held in Florence, shared the attribution given in the Dutch catalogue. In 1968 Pope-Hennessy, reflecting on the attributions of the English catalogue, rejected Santangelo's comparison between the Venus Chastising Cupid of Palazzo Venezia and Roccatagliata’s Three Graces in Modena. Instead he compared the catalogue's bronze with the group of the Little Pig with Four Statues, Gian Francesco Susini's work in the Bargello in Florence. The work here then, even though it is of modest quality, can be attributed to the workshop of Niccolò Roccatagliata and his son Sebastian Nicolini.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Pollak, Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti (Trecento-Settecento), Bergamo 1922, p. 107, no. 73; A. Santangelo, Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, pp. 54-55; Italian Bronze Statuettes, exh. cat., London 1961, no. 180; Meesters van het der Italiaanse Renaissance, exh. cat., Amsterdam 1961-62, no. 132; Bronzetti Italiani del Rinascimentoexh. cat., Florence 1962, no. 130; A. Radcliffe, European Bronze Statuettes, London 1966, p. 96; J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Bronze Statuettes I-II, in "The Burlington Magazine", CV (Gen. 1963), pp. 14-23; J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Bronze Statuettes I-II, in "The Burlington Magazine", CV (Feb. 1963), pp. 58-71; J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Bronze Statuettes I-II, in "Essays on Italian Sculpture", London-New York 1968, pp. 172-198.

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Page created 15/01/2009, last modify 15/11/2010