Antonfrancesco Bugiardini

Carlo De Carlo, Florence, until 1999;

By inheritance to Mary Pavan De Carlo, Florence;

Her sale, Semenzato Casa d'Aste, Florence, 2001, lot 86

A. Bellandi, in V. Natale (ed.), Tardogotico e Rinascimento: cinque maestri italiani, exh. cat. Flavio Pozzallo Antiquario, Turin, 2004, pp. 28-33, no. 4;

Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Sculpture, cat. Salander O’Reilly, New York, 2005, no. 17;

L. Esplund, 'On the Nature of the Crucifix', in Corpora, cat. Salander O'Reilly, New York, 2006, p. 10 

Previously published with an attribution to Baccio da Montelupo, this beautiful Crucifix can instead be associated with the group of Corpora given to Gianfrancesco Bugiardini, a Florentine woodcarver whose identity was only recently elucidated (see Lucidi, op. cit.). Prof. Francesco Caglioti has noted a particular resemblance to a Crucifix formerly in the church of Saint Bonaventure at Bosco ai Frati in the Mugello, which was included in Lucidi's discussion of Bugiardini's oeuvre. According to Caglioti however, Bugiardini's presumed oeuvre shows stylistic discrepancies which suggest that some Corpora, including the present work, were made by another hand within Bugiardini's close circle. A fine example of Florentine devotional sculpture on a smaller scale, the Crucifix was probably intended for individual worship.

RELATED LITERATURE

D. Lucidi, 'Antonfrancesco Bugiardini: Una nuova figura di intagliatore di Crocifissi nella Firenze del Cinquecento', in Nuovi Studi, XV, no. 15, 2009, pp. 69-83 and figs. 82-94

The present lot is the subject of an expertise by Prof. Francesco Caglioti, dated 21 July 2012, which is available upon request.