A pair of Italian bronze, gilt-bronze and parcel-gilt chenets with slaves after the model by Pietro Tacca 19th century

each in the form of a seated slave, on dolphin supports centred by an unidentified coat-of-arms, the base cast with a griffin mask, on dolphin feet, the back cast with a grotesque female mask, the iron supports terminating in a mermaid

These figures derive from the slaves at the foot of the monument dedicated to Ferdinand I de Medici in the Piazza della Darsena in Livorno. These bronzes were amongst the most important productions of Tacca from moulds taken by him in 1607 from real-life galley-slaves and were probably originally destined for the equestrian statue of Ferdinand I de Medici on the Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

Pietro Tacca (1577-1640) was one of the most gifted pupils of Jean de Boulogne and upon the death of his master in 1608, succeeded him as the sculptor at the Court of the Medici Grand Dukes.

A pair of chenets surmounted by slaves after Tacca, was sold in these Rooms as lot 133, 16th June 1995.