Ink-pot with Atlas

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Bronze sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 16

Inventory

PV 09246

Material and technique

Bronze, dark natural patina

Author

Studio of Severo da Ravenna

Dimensions

24 x 16 x 14 cm.

Origin

Barsanti Collection (1934)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

Atlas, nude and with characteristic long hair and thick beard, kneels on his right leg, holding a globe decorated in relief with the sun and stars on his right shoulder. The globe is in fact an oil lamp, to which a candleholder, decorated with palmettes, is fixed. For a time the object was linked to Riccio but, rightly, Santangelo considers it to be a “work of rather poor quality, and not even produced by Riccio’s workshop”. Indeed, it is a Paduan bronze that uses styles from Severo’s workshop. It can be attributed to a follower of limited ability, evident in the careless and imprecise work in the hastily defined muscles, especially on the back of the body.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Pollak, Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti (Trecento-Settecento), catalogue of the collection, Bergamo 1922, no. 19 p. 34; A. Santangelo, Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, p. 36; N. Gramaccini in H. Beck - P.C. Bol, Natur und Antike in der Renaissance, exh. cat., Frankfurt am Main 1985, no. 103, p. 40.