BC/AD Sculpture Ancient to Modern
BC/AD Sculpture Ancient to Modern
Lot Closed
July 9, 03:48 PM GMT
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
VINCENZO GEMITO
Italian
1852 - 1929
MEDUSA
signed: GEMITO, stamped: FONDERIA GEMITO NAPOLI and with a foundry mark to the reverse
bronze, gilt patina, on a metal stand
diameter: 13.3cm., 5¼in.
19.3cm., 7⅝in. overall
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This bronze roundel centred with the head of Medusa is a reworking of Gemito’s extraordinary silver and parcel-gilt relief of Medusa in the J. Paul Getty Museum (inv. no. 86.SE.528). One of Gemito’s most magnificent late works in silver, the Getty Medusa is inspired by the famous carved Hellenistic agate (diam. 20cm.) in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, known as the Tazza Farnese. Whilst the Getty Medusa is dated 1911, the present bronze probably post-dates a related silvered brass cup of 1920 in a private collection in Naples (Champion, op. cit., p. 218, no. 116). The two snake heads in Medusa’s hair in the latter and the present bronze have their mouths open, whilst in the Getty version the snake’s mouths are closed. Several drawings by Gemito evince that he was experimenting with including the Medusa motif in various decorative schemes. In later life, Gemito clearly become obsessed with the idea of Medusa. A few months before he died, he wrote: ‘No one knows that the Medusa really existed. Everyone believes that she was the product of a mythological tale. I alone knew her really living, truly, in Paris. I and the Eternal Father alone know that the Medusa exists’ (cited Fogleman, Fusco and Cambareri, op. cit., p. 342).
RELATED LITERATURE
P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and M. Cambareri, Italian and Spanish Sculpture: catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum collection, Los Angeles, 2002, pp. 338-343, no. 43;
J.-L. Champion, ‘Le Retour a l’Antique’, in Gemito. Le Sculpteur de l’ame Napolitaine, exh. cat., Petit Palais, Paris, 2019, pp. 165-167, p. 218, no. 116