Lot 32
  • 32

Attributed to Gianfrancesco Susini (circa 1585-1653) After a model by Giambologna (1529-1608) Italian, Florence, first half 17th century

Estimate
150,000 - 180,000 GBP
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Description

  • Pacing Horse
  • bronze, on a wood base
  • Attributed to Gianfrancesco Susini (circa 1585-1653) After a model by Giambologna (1529-1608) Italian, Florence, first half 17th century

Provenance

with Partridge, London, 1968;
private collection, London

Exhibited

London, Partridge, Summer Exhibition, June 1968;

Literature

Country Life Magazine, 13 June 1968, page 2608

Condition

Overall the condition of the bronze is very good with wear and dirt to the surface consistent with age. Dust has accumulated in the crevices and there is some dryness to the patina in some of these areas. There are small areas of crazing to the lacquer at the shin of the proper right hind leg and the upper left front leg. There are minor nicks to the surface, including at the side and knee of the proper right front upper leg, the ankle of the proper left front leg, the knee and ankle of the proper right hind leg, right haunch, at the proper right shoulder, and the tip of the horse's right ear. There is a stable fissure at the front of the proper right hind upper leg and probable expert repair to the front left leg. The tail was cast separately; a joint is visible at the base of the tail. There is some minor wear and a few small nicks to the later wooden base.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

This is a well defined and detailed cast of Giambologna’s seminal Pacing Horse and can be attributed to one of the main successors to the Florentine master’s workshop. The Pacing Horse was one of the most sought-after bronzes conceived by Giambologna, coveted by noblemen and scholars for centuries. The horses on some of Giambologna’s most important equestrian monuments derive from the model, including that dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici on Florence’s main square. The present bronze comes from the Connoisseurs Collection, from which an important group of English furniture and paintings, which included Thomas Gainsborough’s Study of a Lady and George Stubbs’ King Charles Spaniel, was sold in these rooms on 4 December 2013.

Pacing Horse statuettes from the Giambologna workshops

A number of payments recorded in the Florentine archives suggest that Giambologna modelled his statuette of the Pacing Horse at the end of 1573. Antonio Susini is thought to have had a hand in designing the horse, since he was employed by Giambologna “to execute the models, moulds, and casts, as well as to clean them, and then construct them” according to Baldinucci. (Gasparotto, p. 92)  From the 1580s onwards Giambologna and Susini cast several examples and their successors, such as Giovanni Francesco Susini (circa 1585-1653) and Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), continued to use the model. In the years following the success of the Pacing Horse, Giambologna invented one further horse statuette that remained a staple for the workshop: the somewhat more formal Pacing horse with clipped mane which was cast both with and without saddle cloth (see Avery and Radcliffe, op.cit., nos. 152-158).

The primary source for equestrian imagery during the Renaissance lay in the ancient monumental sculpture in Italy that remained standing and accessible to the public. The Marcus Aurelius and the Dioscuri in Rome and the San Marco horses in Venice were the most commonly employed prototypes. Giambologna was clearly inspired by the naturalism with which these antiquities are rendered. He masterfully suggested force and tension by his thorough understanding of the animal’s movements and how the skeleton, musculature, veins and skin lay atop one another. What differs from the monumental horses of antiquity is that the Pacing Horse was designed to be viewed at close quarters. As one revolves the horse one after another exquisitely rendered detail emerges, from the carefully delineated pupils to hairs in the mane, and from the elaborately braided tail to the nails in the shoes. Being able to distinguish and express these qualities was perceived as the trait of a true scholar which made the horses so sought after for the Kunstkammern of European princes and nobleman. For Giambologna and his main patrons, the Medici Dukes, they were therefore extremely suited as diplomatic gifts. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, received a cast of the present model which was inherited by King Charles I in 1611 and is possibly the one now in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen (see Avery and Radcliffe, op.cit., no. 152). Other casts were collected by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague and Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, in Dresden, and examples are kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A148.1910), The Art Institute of Chicago (60.887), and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (5843).

Since the bronzes were cast and finished by different members of Giambologna’s workshop, versions of the Pacing Horse have different appearances. Giambologna’s own bronzes tend to be superlative casts with very little chasing, giving many of the details a waxy appearance. He left the eyes blank and was economical with embellishments such as the nails in the hooves. Antonio Susini, on the other hand, was a trained goldsmith and is supposed to have finished his bronzes more thoroughly, adding details such as irises and pupils comparable to the present horse. Gianfrancesco Susini continued in his uncle's vein, sometimes adapting the models slightly by varying the eyes, hooves and the mane. The Pacing Horses by the latter from the Galleria Colonna in Rome illustrated by Gasparotto and the Liechtenstein collection illustrated by Kugel (op.cit., no. 12) have a reddish brown lacquer applied to the surface which compares to parts of the present horse. (op.cit., fig. 4) The present horse is distinguished from these casts by its clearly defined tongue, the long soft tufts of hair at the ergots near the hooves, and the shape of the shoes. Minute parallel lines are visible on the surface of the bronze, showing that it was carefully shaped after casting.

The Monument to Grand Duke Cosimo I

Aside from the dissemination of statuettes of the Pacing Horse; the model also plays a central role in some of Giambologna’s most important commissions. On 15 January 1563 Giambologna announced his plans for the creation of a major equestrian monument in bronze for his patron Francesco de’Medici. With appropriate humility he described the large design he had drawn and mentioned that he had readied a model for the horse in black wax. Proud of his progress, he stated that the project was ready for execution. (Gasparotto, op.cit., p. 89) The sculptor was not given the commission for the monument by Duke Francesco but clearly continued work on the monument, creating the present statuette amongst other related projects. A letter from 1580 written to the Duke of Urbino by the agent Simone Fortuna suggests that Giambologna was nevertheless still determined to create a great equestrian bronze. Fortuna relayed that the horse and rider were envisaged to be twice the size of the Roman Marcus Aurelius on horseback and was to be located in front of Michelangelo’s David on the Piazza della Signoria. (Gasparotto, op.cit., p. 89) Giambologna was probably aware of the political message a major effigy of a member of the Medici family among the symbols of the Florentine Republic on the square could convey and must have recognised that such a monument would align him with the sculptors of Antiquity, Michelangelo, and the makers of the two other great equestrian monuments of the Renaissance, Donatello and Verrocchio. The Flemish sculptor would have to wait for nearly another decade -until the ascension of the next Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I- to realise this magnum opus.

Finally, in 1587, Ferdinando I asked Giambologna to plan for a bronze portrait of his father, Grand Duke Cosimo I, on horseback which was to be over four metres in length. Bernardo Vecchietti, a champion of Giambologna, was asked to oversee the project and the design for the monument was refined with the help of painters Ludivico Cigoli and Gregorio Pagani. The complex casting was done in the foundry at Borgo Pinti under the direction of Giovanni Alberghetti with the assistance of further metalworkers, including Antonio Susini and Pietro Tacca, and took place between 1591 and 1594. Despite the involvement of numerous other artists in the monument’s final design, Cosimo’s horse barely deviates from the present model, which was designed nearly two decades before. The monument became an instant success. In a 1594 letter to Emperor Rudolf II, the architect Giovanni Gorgioli praises the quality of the horse and laments that it was not the Emperor’s to possess. (Gasparotto, op.cit., p. 94) Soon, however, Giambologna and his workshop would produce further monuments, including several for foreign rulers. Large monuments were commissioned to commemorate Ferdinando I de’ Medici in Florence, Henry IV of France in Paris, and Philip III of Spain in Madrid. Small versions for Rudolf II and Henry IV are now in museums in Stockholm and Dijon respectively. (see Gasparotto, op.cit., figs. 10-11 and 14-16)

RELATED LITERATURE
H. Weihrauch, Europaische Bronzestatuetten, Brunswick, 1967, nos. 177-178; C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna 1528-1609. Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, London, 1978, pp. 172-186; C. Avery, Giambologna, Florence, 1987, pp. 158 and 251; F. Carinci et al., Catalogo della Galleria Colonna in Roma. Sculture, Rome, 1990, pp. 300-301; D. Gasparotto, ‘Cavalli e cavalieri. Il monument equestre da Giambologna a Foggini’, B. Paolozzi Strozzi and D. Zikos, Giambologna. Gli dei, gli eroi, exh. cat. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Florence/ Milan, 2006, pp. 88-106; A. Kugel, Les bronzes du Prince de Liechtenstein. Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Renaissance et du Baroque, exh. cat. J. Kugel, Paris, 2008, p. 94, no. 12