A PAIR OF WEDGWOOD BLUE AND WHITE JASPER-DIP 'MICHELANGELO' VASES CIRCA 1840
Auction Closed
October 23, 06:38 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A PAIR OF WEDGWOOD BLUE AND WHITE JASPER-DIP 'MICHELANGELO' VASES CIRCA 1840
shape no. 180, each applied around the exterior of the body with bands of foliate scrolls and stiff leaves, the neck applied with foliate festoons suspended from goat's head masks, raised on a fluted base supported by three white-jasper classical male figures, upon triangular bases, each impressed uppercase WEDGWOOD, incised //.
Height 11⅜ in.
28.9 cm
Kohn & Kohn, Philadelphia, 1979
The three figures fprmong the base are taken from three of the four figures on the base of the silver-gilt crucifix by Antonio Gentile da Faenza (1519-1609) in the Treasury of St. Peter's in Rome. The name 'Michelangelo' may have derived from William Chambers' illustrated A Treatise of Civil Architecture, 1759, where three of the figures are referenced as been "cast from models of Michael Angelo Buonarroti", Hilary Young, The Genius of Wedgwood, 1995, p. 68, C 28. For further reading on this model and photographs of the Renaissance silver-gilt crucifix see the paper by Jennifer Montagu, ' A Renaissance Work Copied by Wedgwood', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1954, Vol. 17, No. 3/4, pp. 380-381.