Attributed to Andrea Ferrucci

Identifiable as the virtue of Prudence through the writhing serpent in her left hand, this near life-size figure is unmistakably Florentine in character. Her languid contrapposto and positioning of the arms reference Donatello’s bronze statue of David, which had considerable influence on the work of later Renaissance sculptors in the Tuscan city.

One such artist was Andrea Ferrucci, who hailed from a dynasty of sculptors in Fiesole. Active in both Tuscany and Naples, Ferrucci made his greatest mark in Florence, where he oversaw the work on the cathedral from 1512 and was employed on Michelangelo’s New Sacristy in 1524. The present figure shows a striking stylistic affinity with works by Ferrucci, allowing for an attribution to the sculptor. Her complex and varied drapery scheme, which includes a fold across her chest that cleverly mirrors the S-curve of the serpent, is characteristic of Ferrucci. Similar tangled folds between the torso and legs are seen, for example, in his Saint Matthew in Fiesole, while the deep folds along the legs compare to the Saint John the Evangelist from the tomb of Giovanni Battista Cicaro in Naples, as well as the statue of Saint Andrew Ferrucci sculpted for the Florentine Duomo. With her forefinger outstretched and fingers retreating into the folds of her drapery, the Prudence’s right hand compares closely to that of Ferrucci’s Archangel Michael in Monte Sant’Angelo, another work by the sculptor with close echoes of Donatello’s David.

Further comparison can be made with the marble figure of Saint Catherine in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (inv. no. 27.579), though there is a notable difference in facial features and hairstyle. The round, open-mouthed face of the Prudence relates instead to works by Ferrucci’s pupils, Tommaso Boscoli (1501-1574) and Silvio Cosini (1495-1549), who collaborated on the tomb of Antonio Strozzi in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, in which the Madonna shows a similar facial type. A dating of the present figure in Ferrucci’s late career, after the completion of the Duomo’s Saint Andrew in 1514, is therefore plausible.

RELATED LITERATURE

R. Naldi, Andrea Ferrucci: Marmi gentili tra la Toscana e Napoli, Naples 2002

The present lot is the subject of an expertise by Grégoire Extermann.

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