Circle of Andrea Riccio (c. 1470-1532) Italian, Padua, early 16th century

Phillips London, 30 June 1987, lot 107

V. Avery, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, exhib. cat. Daniel Katz Ltd., London, 2002, pp.112-5, no. 11; V. Krahn, Bonzetti Veneziani. Die venezianischen Kleinbronzen der Renaissance aus dem Bode-Museum Berlin, Berlin, 2003, pp. 116-119, no. 28

Overall the condition of the bronze is good with some wear and dirt to the surface consistent with age including a few small areas of particular wear to the surface at the proper right elbow, the balls of the feet and the toes. There are a few minor nicks including to the proper left thigh and corners of the bronze base. There are a few little spots of greening on the surface including around the proper right knee and calf muscle. There are a few small spots of white pigment, including in the hair. The bronze has had several coloured lacquers, including a now largely flaked black one and a reddish one visible on the chest. The genitals have been covered in wax, probably as a cache sex. Like the cast in the Fitzwilliam, the present nymph's gentials are likely to have been carefully delineated and may well be beneath the wax. There is wear to the wood base throughout.
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The Nymph is shown asleep. Resting her head in her right hand she leans back, seemingly lost in a dream, her mouth slightly open. This beautiful Renaissance statuette has no specific subject; she has no attributes. Two other fine casts of this model are published: one Bode Museum, Berlin and one in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Discussing the Berlin cast in his 1927 monograph on Andrea Riccio, Leo Planiscig compared the bronze, and related statuettes, to images of nudes in early 16^th century painting, such as Giorgione’s Concert Champêtre, in the Louvre (op. cit., p.423). A further striking affinity can be observed with the nymph, resting against a tree in a mirrored pose, in Giovanni Bellini and Titian’s Feast of the Gods in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. As the gods relax and turn to watch the sleeping nymph, so this sensual bronze would have been intended for personal reflection on the beauty of the human form, as suggested by V. Avery (op. cit.,2011, p.131), without the need for extraneous subject matter.

Wilhem von Bode’s firm attribution of the Berlin bronze to Riccio has been generally accepted until recently. Krahn (op.cit., p116) attributed it to the circle of Riccio, in a detailed study which identified it as a prime example of the model made in Padua, 1530-40 . However, Avery has proposed an alternative theory of a Mantuan sculptor active in the early 16^th century for the Fitzwilliam bronze. The latter was acquired by Colonel Boscawen from the dealer Alfred Spero as a work by the Milanese sculptor, Antico.  Both authors have noted a bronze sold in Sotheby’s, London, 12^th July 1979, lot 169, as a further cast of the Nymph, but it should be excluded from this group because it is of inferior quality, without comparable decoration in the hair.

The facture of the present Sleeping Nymph compares more closely with the hammered surface of the Berlin cast, a technique often associated with Riccio and Paduan bronzes. By contrast the Fitzwilliam Nymph has a smooth surface and sharper details, such as in the teeth, mouth and eyes. The Fitzwilliam version lacks a comparable diadem to the present and Berlin bronzes, but has more detail in the ribbons and pearls in the hair. The tree in the Berlin bronze is cast separately and it must be supposed that all the figures originally had some sort of support for the right arm, most likely a tree as in the Berlin version.

RELATED LITERATURE
W. Bode, The Italian bronze statuette of the Renaissance, rev. ed. by J.D. Draper, New York, 1980, p.20, pl. XXXIII; L. Planiscig, Andrea Riccio, Vienna, 1977, pp.420-3, fig. 506; V. Avery, Vulcan’s Forge in Venus’ City. The Story of Bronze in Venice 1350-1650, New York, 2011, p. 131, fig. 10.31