Horse
- Object belonging
- One's own
- Category
- Bronze sculpture
- City
- Rome
- Location
- Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia
- Specific location
- Room 17
- Inventory
- PV 05545
- Material and technique
- Bronze, brown patina, black lacquer
- Author
- Severo da Ravenna (1465/1475-1538) and studio
- Dating
- Late 15th-early 16 century
- Dimensions
- 17.3 x 16.5 x 5 cm.
- Origin
- Virgilio Spada's Museo di Curiosità (1662); Biblioteca Vallicelliana (1886); Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano (1917); Gustavo Marvasi (1931)
- Image copyright
- SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma
Short description
This horse was part of the Roman collection of "objects of curiosity" belonging to Virgilio Spada (1596-1662), an important figure who served two popes as a “cameriere segreto”, or "personal attendant". The bronze, which is of excellent quality, exchanged hands several times before becoming part of the Palazzo Venezia collection in 1931. The detailed chiselling in the “worm-like” hair of the mane is typical of the style adopted by Severo da Ravenna in defining human hair and the coats of animals. The right hind leg rests on the ground, rather than being slightly raised, differentiating the bronze from other similar small horse models and clearly showing its derivation from the quadriga of St. Mark’s in Venice.
Pietro Cannata
Bibliography
G. Finocchiaro, Il museo di curiosità di Virgilio Spada. Una raccolta romana del Seicento, Rome 1999, pp. 108 and 217.