A late 18th / early 19th century Italian carved white marble figure of the Antinous Belvedere

probably Roman, after the antique

Footnotes

13 ATTRIBUTED TO BACCIO (BARTOLOMMEO) BANDINELLI (ITALIAN, 1493-1560): A GOOD MID-16TH CENTURY FLORENTINE CARVED WHITE MARBLE OVAL PROFILE PORTRAIT RELIEF OF A GENTLEMAN
possibly depicting the Duke Cosimo I de'Medici
the sitter with curling hair and beard and elaborate scroll embroidered collar, 34cm high x 26cm wide overall £7,000 - 10,000 €8,300 - 12,000 $9,700 - 14,000

Baccio or Bartolommeo Bandinelli, actually Bartolommeo Brandini (1493-1560) was a Renaissance Italian sculptor, draughtsman, and painter. Comparative literature Volker Krahn in, Baccio Bandinelli, Scultore e Maestro (1493-1560), exh. cat, ed. Detlef Heikamp and Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 2014, pp. 352-55, nos. 26-27 (the small bronze busts); compare for the large busts of Cosimo in marble and bronze, pp. 304, no 17 and p. 310, no.20); for a 'young' marble bust in New York, p, 582, no. XI; and for a chalk portrait of Cosimo in three-quarters view, pp.42-21, no 53.

The image This intimately conceived portrait oval is of good quality and is possibly from the world of the great Medicean sculptor and bitter rival of Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli. The chips at the edge of the oval edge suggest it might have been roughly prised out of a tight frame or setting into a wall, perhaps on a Mannerist tomb or mantelpiece. The subject, wearing a contemporary lace-trimmed collar, resembles Cosimo I de' Medici, who was Bandinelli's employer as a court sculptor. The profile of the nose varies slightly from other marble portraits and small bronze medals commemorating the Duke's reign and principal successes in public architectural and sculptural projects. Bandinelli's career and aspirations Born eighteen years after Michelangelo (1475-1564) who was his hero and seven years before Cellini (1500-1571) who conversely was his arch-rival, enemy and nemesis in terms of reputation.

Bandinelli was a major sculptor of the High Renaissance in Florence and later in Rome. It was however his fate to be overshadowed by the 'divine' and 'terrifying' Michelangelo however hard he tried to match his achievements and to be blackguarded by the jealous Cellini in his autobiography. Bandinelli's and Cellini's professional rivalry, and personal animosity, famously deteriorated into schoolboy behaviour with the two making rude gestures and shouting insults at one another in the street much to the disapproval of the straitlaced Spanish grandee and Duchess, Eleonora da Toledo. Giorgio Vasari, painter, impresario of Medici commissions and latterly biographer of Florentine artists, also took against him, on account of his social pretensions and obsession with outdoing their joint hero, Michelangelo. In artistic terms this led him obsessively to produce self-portraits, emphasising his status as a Florentine aristocrat and a Knight of the Order of Santiago. The Identity of the sitter Bandinelli's oeuvre in marble is to be found mainly in Florence and Rome, runing to some twenty commissions comprising many individual statues and reliefs (e.g. the 88 panels of the choir enclosure in Florence Cathedral, some of which are signed and dated 1555)

Bandinelli produced several portrait-busts or reliefs of Duke Cosimo made in rivalry with Cellini, and of the Duke and his wife on their tomb in SS, Annunziata, as well as other distinguished, affluent or noted Florentines. The present lot closely resembles a small portrait relief of Cosimo that came up for sale in New York in 2012. A decade or so later the same relief was offered again in New York in 2021 -on this occasion it was 'attributed' to Bandinelli rather than to his workshop. The present lot shares the same intense stare and unusually bulbous line of the upper forehead. As such if this is also a portrait of the Duke, it could be that the slightly aquiline ridge of the nose here is truer to the sitter in real life with the straighter and thus more flatteringly Grecian and 'ideal' line shown on most of his portrait depictions. Here the chin is strong and firm although perhaps a little less projecting than in the other portraits and the hair of the beard is less closely cropped and more curling