Giovanni Pratesi: The Florentine Eye

Giovanni Pratesi: The Florentine Eye

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 26. Pair of Urns.

Italian, probably 16th/ 17th century and later

Pair of Urns

Auction Closed

March 22, 07:15 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 EUR

Lot Details

Description

Italian, probably 16th/ 17th century

Pair of Urns


marble

85cm., 33½in. each

This lot has an artistic export license. Please refer to the specialist department for further information about export procedures and shipping costs.

S. Bellesi, Pittura e scultura a Firenze, Florence, 2017, pp. 138-140, figs. 1-3

This impressive pair of marble vases are exceptional in both their form and iconography. The upper figurative freeze is of generous dimensions with large figures carved against a plain background. The lower gardrooned section is punctuated by stylistically diverse lion heads, carved in an antique manner. The supporting foot appears to be later.


In each vase a group of putti, some winged others not, attend two reclining figures, presumably mythological gods. The reclining figure with the most certain identification is the young man with his legs elegantly folded, a lion’s pelt hanging from his left shoulder. He holds a club in his right hand and a thyrsus in his left hand, whilst a putto restrains a panther at his side. These attributes are consistent with Bacchus and the man’s youthful beauty would support this identification. He is paired with an older man. Bearded but handsome, he leans on his left arm and reaches out to take a double-handled vase from a putto. Maria Cecilia Fabbri has suggested this figure represents Silenus yet lacks any of his more obvious attributes. On the second vase, a woman dressed in a voluminous robe is handed a tambourine by a putto. She is paired with a man robed all'antica, revealing an athletic torso. A putto hands him a stick whilst awkwardly holding another to his head. A second putto walks forward holding a cup. Fabbri has noted that youthful representations of Attis hold similar sticks and has further identified the attribute of the tambourine with the goddess Cybele. Each vase is centred by putti holding an escutcheon, which bear an emblem that has been identified by Bellesi (op. cit., p. 140) as the Poggi family, originally from Lucca, whilst Fabbri has proposed the Ciocchi del Monte family.


The present lot is the subject of an expertise by Maria Cecilia Fabbri.


This lot has an artistic export license. Please refer to the specialist department for further information about export procedures and shipping costs.