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ISBN 978-88-7439-941-3
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Cover
St Catherine of Al exandria circa 1525-1550, Lorraine, limestone, 102 × 50 × 39 cm
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 | Scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary
4 Episodes from the Life of Christ 165
5 | Saints and Intercessors
1. The Age of Bronze Ferdinand Neuberger
Circa 1650-1680
Bavaria
Wax on ivory; partially gilt wooden frame
10.4 × 13.3 × 2 cm
23 × 20 × 6.2 cm with the frame
“FN” on a stone block at lower left ; “SECULUM AE[N]EUM” at lower right
FGA-AD-BA-0157
CONDITION
Corresponds to the assumed original condition
PROVENANCE
Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, 1 June 2017, lot no. 79
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unpublished work
The Age of Bronze is one of the very few surviving works by Ferdinand Neuberger, a ceroplastic artist from Augsburg. Only about ten of his wax pictures are still extant. They mostly depict battle scenes or subjects drawn from ancient culture, as is the case here with the myth of the Ages of Man. The main source of this anthropogonic account is the Metamorphoses (Book I) by the Latin poet Ovid According to Ovid, the history of humanity is divided into four successive ages – the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages – which led man from an idyllic past to violent decadence. The age of bronze or brass corresponds to a transitional period during which man prepares for the wars of the Iron Age by building stockades, citadels, and ships. In Ferdinand Neuberger’s depiction, craftsmen are busy in the foreground building a fortified town that can be made out on a promontory in the background. The only character on horseback is the person who commissioned the work, there to see how it is progressing.
The artist has chosen iconography in line with a tradition typical of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In those days the Metamorphoses were hugely popular, and the book went through numerous editions, often illustrated with engravings. The theme also seems to have been a favourite of other ceroplastic artists in the Neuberger family. Thus Ferdinand’s brother and niece, Daniel and Anna Felicitas Neuberger, produced several cycles from the Metamorphoses, comprising some sixty scenes from Ovid’s poem. 1
No doubt Ferdinand Neuberger’s The Age of Bronze likewise belonged to a larger set. In this regard, the Un iversity Library of Erlange n-Nürnberg possesses an interesting album of 122 drawings on the theme of the Metamorphoses traced on the artist’s initiative from his ceroplastic creations.2 Although the iconography of The Age of Bronze in that album is different from what we have here, this information suggests that during his career Neuberger undoubtedly carved more than one Metamorphoses cycle, although those pieces have not come down to us.
This state of affairs remains unsurprising. In those days, wax pictures, then very much in vogue, were produced mainly for the Kunst- and Wunderkammer of the European courts. Their purpose was to instil fascination and wonder in the viewer, while affording an opportunity to learn. When these places of knowledge saw their popularity wane, the sometimes odd items housed therein were often taken out of their creative context and, in some cases, ended up disappearing altogether. Through its technical virtuosity, The Age of Bronze contributes fully to this culture of curiosity: Neuberger has effectively worked all the faces of the main figures in the round, thus creating a work of quite remarkable delicacy.
VK
1 See McGrath 2016.
2 See F. Neuberger, foreword to Ferdinand Neuberger-Codex - UER CIM.P 16 ca. 1680, University Library of ErlangenNürnberg, H62/CIM.P 16 [urn:nbn:de:bvb:29-bv043570870-7]. These are drawings by the hand of Johann Meyer, later used as models for making etchings.
13.
Dish: Sacrifice of Marcus Curtius workshop of Ludovico and Angelo Picchi (Andrea da Negroponte ?) (attr.)
Circa 1550-1560
Castel Durante
Earthenware
42 × 5.5 cm
“curtio romano quando se geto inquella oraggine” in blue on the reverse FGA-AD-OBJ-0067
CONDITION
Minor chipping
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Rome
Sotheby’s, London, 6 July 2010, lot no. 3 Lempertz, Cologne, 10 May 2012, lot no. 186
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wilson 1996, cited and b/w repr. pp. 299-300, no. 125
Wilson 2002, cited p. 136-138, b/w repr. p. 138, no. 24
As specified in the inscription on the back of this dish, 1 the depicted scene is taken from an episode recounted by Livy in his History of Rome (VII, 6): the Sacrifice of Marcus Curtius. After an earthquake opened up a gaping hole in the midd le of the Forum, an opinion of the gods recommended sacrificing to it whatever was the main strength of the Roman people in order to fill it. A young warrior answering to the name Marcus Curtius considered that this strength lay primarily in weaponry and courage, and demonstrated as much by throwing himself over the precipice. The scene here shows Marcus Curtius at the precise moment when, riding his richly decked horse, he leaps into the abyss – materialised by a large black spot – in the midst of a crowd of Romans spread across either side of the composition.
With the heraldic shield (gules, on a thin fess sable three cinquefoils argent; on a chief or a raven sable) suspended from a branch of the central tree, this plate recalls two others bearing the same arms, as yet unidentified with any certainty: a plate devoted to the Bible story of The Gathering of Manna , kept at the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, inv. 48.1514), and a smaller dish in the Musée du Louvre, featuring, after the Aeneid Sinon brought before Priam (inv. OA 1592). These resemblances point towards the dish at the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art as having belonged to a service devoted to the major themes of ancient and biblical history, probably made at the most prolific workshop in Castel Durante in the mid-sixteenth century, namely the Picchi brothers.
Standing out at this workshop is the original style of one prolific artist, active between roughly 1545 and 1563, known by convention as Andrea da Negroponte, from the name inscribed on the reverse of a cup of the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art in Arezzo (inv. 14614). Inasmuch as the Castel Durante archives bear no mention of any painter going by the name of “Andrea da Negroponte”, he could also be a dealer or a patron, or maybe even a decorator working for one of the Castel Durante workshops. 2
Through its masterly composition and balanced colour distribution, this dish is held to be among the greatest and best pieces to come out of this workshop. 3 The representation of sacrifice, much appreciated by the painter 4 is particularly faithful to Livy’s account, with the presence of a compact crowd and in the backg round a fortified city. The fall is clearly imminent, as the horse has already reared, its two front legs poised over the brink. The emphasis is thus placed on the highly dramatic moment of the sacrifice per se, reinforcing the symbolic value of the story of the Roman hero as an example of virtue celebrated by Renaissance humanism.
1 “To the Roman citizen Curtius, when he braved this great danger.”
2 Leonardi 1982, p. 168, cited by Wilson 1996, p. 300; Wilson 1996, p. 299; Wilson 2002, pp. 136-138; Wilson 2015, pp. 22-25.
3 Wilson 1996, pp. 299-300.
4 Fiocco, Gherardi 2015, pp. 196-199.
19. Dish: The Great Whore of Babylon Martial Courteys
Circa 1580
Limoges
Enamel painted on copper, silver paillons, and gold highlighting 39.2 × 54.7 × 4.2 cm
“APOCAL XVII” in gold under the monster’s paws on the face; “COURTOIS. FE” in gold on a purple dais on the underside FGA-AD-OBJ-0053
CONDITION
Missing: enamel on the paillons of the fi rst king’s mantle and the woman’s dress
PROVENANCE
Collection of the Grand Dukes of Hesse and the Rhine, Darmstadt Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt Galerie Fischer, Lucerne (exchange then purchase in 1978)
Private collection, Switzerland Christie’s, London, 8 December 2011, lot no. 190
EXHIBITION
Enfer ou paradis, Aux sources de la caricature XVI e-XVIII e siècles 2013-2014
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Elsig, Sala 2013, cited pp. 36-37, col. repr. p. 38, no. 5
Higgott 2011, cited p. 321
Thornton 2015, cited p. 335, note 8
ARCHIVES
Marquet de Vasselot, Jean-Joseph, handwritten sheet and photograph, documentary collection of the Department of Decorative Arts, Musée du Louvre, Paris (box 8 “Œuvres M. Courteys” and iconography box “Allemagne”)
This large oval dish illustrates the New Testament story recounting the fall of Babylon, in chapter XVII of the Revelation to John. A magnificently dressed woman, with bared bosom, is holding a covered cup in her hand and riding a seven-headed beast. In Revelation, she represents “Babylon the great, mother of harlots and earth’s abominations” before whom the kings and inhabitants of the earth prostrate themselves.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this figure became charged with fresh connotations in connection with the Reformation. The association of Rome and Babylon, embodying the corrupt earthly city as opposed to the heavenly Jerusalem, then became a commonplace for criticism of the temporal seat of the Church and the papacy. Here the Whore of Babylon is wearing the papal tiara, and it is the entire Catholic community – including emperor, king, pope, bishop, and monk – kneeling down before her.
This iconography gradually became established in Germany, from the Dürer engraving of 1498, to Luther’s New Testament published in 1522, illustrated by Lucas Cranach and reprinted several times with a number of variants. 1 The composition was revived in France in the second half of the century, notably in Lyon, in the many Bibles illustrated by Bernard Salomon ( Figures du Nouveau Testament , New Testament Figures, 1554) and Pierre Eskrich. 2 Meanwhile, the grotesque motifs painted on the plate’s brim and reverse are inspired by the decorative vocabulary of the Fontainebleau School and French ornamental engravings of the second half of the sixteenth century, most notably those of Étienne Delaune. 3
Martial Courteys, who came from a family of enamellists from Limoges,4 executed three other dishes based on the same iconography: those at the Green Vault (Dresden, inv. III 8) and at the British Museum (London, inv. WB.31) were signed in the same fashion by the enamellist and have the same ornamental decoration on the rim and on the reverse; the one at the National Gallery in Washington (inv. 1942.9.291), signed with the initials “MC”, has the same decoration on the rim, but a different one on the bowl’s reverse. 5 The fact that Martial Courteys reproduced al most identical versions of the same composition on several dishes evidences the existence of an as yet unknown intermediate graphic model drawing upon the various existing iconographic sources.
This work, which represents a genuine technical feat on account of its large dimensions and the use of numerous silver paillons (leaves) set off with translucent coloured enamels, is characteristic of the polychrome enamel production on a black ground in Limoges in the late sixteenth century.
1 Weinhold 2008, pp. 130-131.
2 Elsig, Sala 2013, p. 37.
3 Higgott 2011, p. 321.
4 Beyssi-Cassan 2006, pp. 380-381.
5 Distelberger, Luchs, Verdier, Wilson 1993, pp. 101-103.
Circa 1650-1700
Italy
Bronze
38 × 18 × 16 cm
FGA-AD-BA-0080
CONDITION
Corresponds to the assumed original condition
PROVENANCE
Marc-Arthur Kohn, Paris, 4 May 2012, lot no. 6 (attributed to Giovanni Francesco Susini)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unpublished work
26. Executioner Holding the Head of a Victim after Giambologna
Brandishing a sabre in his right hand and the head of a victim in his left, this firmly set figure seems to be staring down the viewer. The face has deep sunken eye sockets and its surface is partially covered by tufts of beard, hair, and eyebrows. The statue is a variation on Giambologna’s Mars, one of his most famous creations in the field of the heroic nude. In its earlier versions, this work, enlivened by the dynamic rotation of the torso and the vigorous accentuation of the shadows, presents the left heel raised to suggest a movement of the body, 1 while the hand stretched out to the front is deployed freely in empty space. This particularity had led Wilhelm von Bode to imagine that the statue originally held a severed head, as in the version belonging to the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art. 2 However, the copies dating back to Giambologna’s time do not have this feature, and its absence maintains this iconographic indeterminacy usually sought by the sculptor because it enables him to relegate the subject to the background as he spotlights the virtuos ity of form.
A variant by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi possessing this attribute (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. 8122) shows in the stream of blood a reference to Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus group, which therefore places it firmly within the Florentine tradition. In the copy at the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, the neck is severed cleanly and the classicism of the features, evidenced by the broad, smooth forehead, the straight nose, and the hair worked in silky ribbons, is more reminiscent of the circle of Alessandro Algardi. The he ad in fact closely resembles certain sacred bronzes that brought success to the Bolognese sculptor long after his death, such as the Baptism of Christ (Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. 1965.471), the Flagellation (Kunsthistorischesmuseum, Vienna, inv. Schatzkammer, D.127), or the St Nicholas of Tolentino (National Museum of Palazzo Venezia, Rome, inv. 10760). 3 It also recalls the work of François Duquesnoy, the only artist apart from Algardi who, according to Giovanni Pietro Bellori, was capable of elevating sculpture to the excellence of Antiquity 4 and who executed a similar group representing an execut ioner holding the head of John the Baptist for the confraternity of San Giovanni Decollato in Rome. 5 The same title was given to the group by Soldani Benzi, maybe with reference to St John the Baptist as the patron saint of Florence. It is however more difficult to make a similar claim for the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art bronze, given its overtly profane tone, the lack of any meaningful attributes, and above all the fully baroque contrast between the ferociousness of the executioner and the victim’s irenic expression.
1 This compositional element is common with Giambologna. See Hercules with a Club in the National Museum of Bargello (Florence, inv. 362B) or the colossal group Samson and a Philistine in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, inv. A.7-1954).
2 Bode 1911, p. 636.
3 Montagu 1985, pp. 311-312, 321, 367-368; Giometti 2011, pp. 42-44.
4 Bellori 1976, pp. 269 and 339.
5 See Boudon-Machuel 2005a, pp. 334-335, no. In. 125 ex. 9.
30. Virgin and Child
Circa 1380-1400
Île-de-France
Limestone
51 × 18 × 11.5 cm
FGA-AD-BA-0025
CONDITION
Later polychromy and gilding
Missing: right arm, right foot, and left thumb on the Virgin; left foot on the Child
PROVENANCE
Marc-Arthur Kohn, Paris, 18 March 2011, lot no. 15
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unpublished work
About fifty centimetres high, the graceful blue-cloaked Virgin is depicted suckling her son, following an iconography much used in carvings coming out of late-fourteenth-century Paris. Standing, she carries him on her left arm and tenderly gazes at him as he undoes her bodice with his two tiny hands in search of the breast. The Child, with chubby cheeks and curly locks, is pictured half naked, the lower body being swaddled in a fabric identical to the one his mother is wearing.
Mary’s figure is slender, with a slight contrapposto Her long cloak/veil sweeps, apron-like, across the front and falls back in the opposite direction, creating an overall S shape. The folds are supple, drawing long, gently undulating lines as on the garment of a saint dated circa 1390-1400, housed at the Musée de Cluny (Paris, inv. Cl. 18931). 1 The back of the statue is carved in wide folds, fewer in number on the cloak, and straight on the dress. The care taken in the execution of the rear side suggests that the work was not intended for a single frontal viewpoint. The gentle tilting of the Virgin’s head towards her son is an invitation to walk round her and seek various angles. Mary’s soft young face, with her long loose hair visible beneath the veil slipped under her cloak, expresses a dreamy modesty, here underlined by the absence of a crown.
This Virgin and Child has been repainted quite heavily down the front at some unknown stage. Meanwhile, the reverse has lost much of its polychromy, whether it was original or not, suggesting that the statue was exhibited for an extended period against a wall. The current colours of the garments do nevertheless correspond to those being used at the time it was made: blue mantle strewn with gold flowers, red dress, hems of the garments and the hair heightened with gold. The Child is wearing the same motifs and colours, thereby creating continuity between the two characters.
While in the late fourteenth century there was nothing new about the iconographic theme of the Virgin suckling the Child, the example at the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art is representative of a trend specific to that period: the interest in the intimate relationship between these two beings and the insistence on their physical bond, its humble dimensions further contributing to the humanisation of the divine couple.
1 Taburet-Delahaye 2004, p. 321, no. 201.
Circa 1480-1500
Swabia
Limewood
102.2 × 90.1 × 7.4 cm
FGA-AD-BA-0016
CONDITION
Old wax fi llings reworked by inserting balsa strengthening pieces (Jean-François Salles, Paris, 2017)
PROVENANCE
Binoche & Giquello, Paris, 3 December 2010, lot no. 71
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unpublished work
45. Adoration of the Magi
The limewood bas-relief represents the Adoration of the Magi deployed in two distinct spaces, one enclosed by a curved arch over the Holy Family, the other carved along the skyline of the hilly landscape. The Virgin holds on her lap her son who receives a round cup from the eldest magus, kneeling before him. Standing behind him, his two companions each bear their gift in one hand and their hat in the other, under Joseph’s watchful gaze. Joseph is depicted as an old man, leaning on a stick, standing back a little from the adoration scene per se, according to a tradition common in Germanic parts since the early fifteenth century. One of the magi is black, following a motif whose invention dates back roughly to the 1360s, and which became well-nigh systematic as early as the 1440s, whether in painting or sculpture. The peaceful atmosphere of the scene of paying homage is echoed by the delicate gentleness of the faces, particularly so in the case of the Virgin Mary, while the men have more distinctive features, in line with a masculine-feminine opposition that was common as the century was drawing to a close. The sculptor takes great care over a broad range of details, the hair for example, or items of costume such as the middle magus’s fur collar. The medium, the iconographical treatment, and the style all place this work in South Germany in the late fifteenth century.
This is unquestionably part of an altarpiece, which must have been applied to the inside of one of the wings. The rest of this wing, extending out from the bas-relief, may have been painted, as is the case with the Blaubeuren altarpiece by Michel Erhart (1493-1495). If so, the Adoration of the Magi scene was surely originally polychromed. And yet, there is no longer the slightest trace of paint to be seen. As recently demonstrated in a clarification issued in the catalogue of the exhibition at the Musée de Cluny (Paris) devoted to Swabian sculpture around the 1500s, “the polychroming of medieval German wooden sculptures was an integral part of the process of creating the work”. 1 Only a few less common carvings leave the wood showing, “the polychromy, reduced to a few coloured highlights, is by now only partial, and the whole is covered with a thin, translucent, maybe slightly tinted coat”. 2 In conclusion to her chapter on the painting of medieval German sculptures, Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut further suggests that any sculptures now totally devoid of polychromy have probably been thoroughly scoured. It would appear that the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art bas-relief has come in for such treatment.
Late-fifteenth-century German carved altarpieces were highly ambitious and complex constructions, designed to decorate the altars in churches. With hinged leaves, opened or closed depending on the liturgical feastdays, they were bound therefore to be transformed accordingly. As these altarpieces were positioned quite some distance from the faithful, the paintings or sculptures needed to be easily readable and identifiable, which is what we find with this rigorously and clearly composed Adoration of the Magi BR
