Live Auction 7818Spanish Splendour - The Collection of a Marqués
Lot 88

A SET OF FOUR GILTWOOD FIGURES OF SLAVES

ITALIAN, PROBABLY VENICE, LATE 17TH CENTURY, THE BASES CIRCA 1950, PROBABLY BY MAISON JANSEN

Closed5 November 2009

Price Realised

GBP 49,250

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A SET OF FOUR GILTWOOD FIGURES OF SLAVES
ITALIAN, PROBABLY VENICE, LATE 17TH CENTURY, THE BASES CIRCA 1950, PROBABLY BY MAISON JANSEN
Each depicted seated on a later monochrome carved wood base, possibly previously the supports for a cabinet
Two 45½ in. (115.5 cm.) and two 44 in. (111.7 cm.) high, overall (4)

Specialist note

These figures are variants of two of Pietro Tacca's moors, situated around the base of the monument to Ferdinando de Medici in the Piazza della Darsena, Livorno. These bronzes, considered to be among Tacca's works, originated from life-casts of galley slaves, taken by Tacca in 1607, and probably originally intended for the equestrian monument to Ferdinando which stands in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Pietro Tacca (1577-1640) was one of Giambologna's most gifted pupils and, on his master's death in 1608, succeeded him in the office of court sculptor to the Medici Grand Dukes (K. Watson, Pietro Tacca, Successor to Giovanni Bologna, London, 1983, pp. 206-212; and C. Avery, Giambologna, The Complete Sculpture, Oxford, 1987, p. 229, fig. 263).