Italian, Venice or Rome, second half 16th century | Pax with the Risen Christ

The present pax is an elaborate and monumental example of its type. Cast with open-work features and elaborately engraved on its reverse, it represents a rare breed of high-quality examples of this art form. The front depicts the Risen Christ attended by apostles, flanked by columns with putto supporting its base and surmounting its pediment, topped by an engraved cartouche with the Christogram: IHS. The base features the armorial of an unidentified family featuring six crescent moons (probably the crest of the donors who commissioned and gave this pax to a regional church).

The base of the columns is hand-engraved with trophies and the same goldsmith has remarkably engraved the reverse with various fantastic grotesques, trophies, vanitas, foliage and putto. The date, 1557 is subtly featured on one of the engraved trophies.

The frame of this pax is rather uncommon with less than a handful of examples observed in published literature. The relief of the Risen Christ, however, is reasonably known and is of an earlier date, ca. 1517-22, originally designed for incorporation into paxes and is based upon Raphael's image of Christ for the fresco cycle of apostles and saints commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sala dei Palafrenieri at the Vatican in 1517-18.

The model was considered to be Venetian by Molinier, Bode, Bange and de Ricci, whilst Middeldorf and Pope-Hennessy looked to Milan (op. cit.). Interestingly, Francesco Rossi has tentatively attributed it to Raphael's goldsmith, Antonio di Paolo Fabbri, called Antonio da San Marino (op. cit.).

RELATED LITERATURE

È. Molinier, Les Bronzes de la Renaissance. Les plaquettes, Paris, 1886, Vol. II, no. 438, pp. 60-61; W. v. Bode Beschreibung der Bildwerke der Christlichen Epochen: Die Italienischen Bronzen, Konigliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 1904 no. 1069, p. 100; E. Bange, Die Italienischen Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, Zweiter Teil: Reliefs und Plaketten, Berlin and Leipzig, 1904, no. 586, p. 80; S.de Ricci, The Gustave Dreyfus Collection: Renaissance Bronzes, Oxford, 1931, vol. 2, no. 272, p. 198; J. Pope-Hennessy, Renaissance Bronzes from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Reliefs, plaquettes, statuettes, utensils and mortars, London, 1965 no. 312, p. 89; F. Rossi, La Collezione Mario Scaglia – Placchette, Vols. I-III, Bergamo, 2011, no. VIII.9, pp. 315-17, 565