pietro simoni da barga (active c. 1571–89)
5
Dusk (Il Crepuscolo), c. 1574–88 After Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Terracotta 9 ¾ in. (25 cm) high 11 in. (28 cm) wide 4 ¾ in. (12 cm) deep
Pietro da Barga is well known to connoisseurs of sixteenth-century Florentine sculpture as the artist who, between years 1574 and 1588, made a number of beautiful, small-scale bronze versions of revered marble works for the Medici court of Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Medici ‘Inventario di guardaroba’ lists a number of bronzes after antique models executed by da Barga. The present model is a version of Michelangelo’s famed allegorical statue representing ‘Dusk’ (Il Crepuscolo) from the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, in the New Sacristy at the church of San Lorenzo, Florence (fig. 1). The work was completed between 1524 and 1531 and is paired with an allegory of ‘Dawn’ (Aurora). The pair comprise a group of four sepulchral statues in the chapel executed by Michelangelo, which take the form of reclining figures representing the four phases of the day, the other two being ‘Night’ (La Notte) and ‘Day’ (Il Giorno), which adorn the opposing tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, completed by Michelangelo between 1526 and 1534.
fig. 1 Michelangelo Buonarroti Dusk (Il Crepuscolo), detail of the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, 1524–31 White marble New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence