A dissenting voice was provided by Frank Zöllner in Die Welt, a circumspect one by David Ekserdjian. The display of the bronzes in the Fitzwilliam Museum coincided with a symposium on the bronzes held at the University of Cambridge in July 2015. The possibility that they might be by Michelangelo excited experts, particularly given that no autograph bronzes by Michelangelo are known to have survived. The attribution rested on three planks: firstly, on the bronzes' link to the Montpellier drawing, secondly on their similarity in appearance to other works by Michelangelo, and, thirdly, on a neutron scan, conducted in Switzerland, which dated the bronzes to the first decade of the 16th century. This resulted in the display of the bronzes in the Fitzwilliam in 2015, and an accompanying publication by Victoria Avery and Paul Joannides which argued that the bronzes were indeed by Michelangelo. Seeing the bronzes again in 2012, Joannides linked the sculptures to a drawing of a youth astride a leonine animal in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, a plausible copy of a lost work by Michelangelo. Paul Joannides, an eminent scholar of Michelangelo's drawings, saw the bronzes in 2002 and was struck by their Michelangelesque qualities. In 2012, they were exhibited at the Bronze exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts as mid sixteenth-century Roman. 1525-1580), at the Frick Collection, New York, with an attribution to this Dutch sculptor. In 2003 they were lent by the new owner to an exhibition, Willem van Tetrode (c. In 2002, they were again sold, at Sotheby's London to a British collector for £1.8m, as a mid sixteenth-century Florentine artist in the circle of Benvenuto Cellini. Over the years, the sculptures had been attributed to other artists, including Tiziano Aspetti, Jacopo Sansovino and Benvenuto Cellini, or their respective circles. When the Rothschilds' heir Maurice de Rothschild died in 1957, they were purchased by a French private collector. The works had been acquired the previous year in Venice by Baron Adolphe de Rothschild and Julie de Rothschild. The bronzes were exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universellein 1878 as the work of Michelangelo, although this attribution was disputed at the time. The sculptures would be the only autograph bronze works by Michelangelo to have survived. If the attribution is correct, Michelangelo would have made the bronzes around 1506 to 1508, before the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling but after the marble statue of David. The bronzes were displayed to the public at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, from February to August 2015 with an attribution to Michelangelo. The sculptures are unsigned and the figures and panthers have been separately cast. The younger man is 76.6 cm, the other almost 90 cm high. ![]() Mirroring each other in pose, the nude men are distinguished by age, one young, the other bearded. The Rothschild Bronzes, also known as the Michelangelo Bronzes, are a pair of 16th century statuettes, each depicting a nude male figure riding a mythological animal, usually identified as a panther. Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |