A BRONZE CORPUS FIGURE

The history of the small crucifixes emanating from the workshops of Pietro and Ferdinando Tacca is recognised to be complex, not least because of the small number of relevant documents (Watson, op. cit., p. 255, n. 11). The present example is related to a type which seems to have originated at the time, not long after Giambologna's death in 1608, when Tacca was completing the monumental equestrian bronze sculpture of Philip III of Spain. When the bronze was ready to be shipped from Florence to Madrid, Pietro's brother Andrea accompanied it and also took with him a gilt-bronze corpus figure which is today in the Escorial. Large bronzes of the Escorial type continued to be produced by both Pietro and Ferdinando - an example was executed by the latter for the cathedral in Prato in 1653 (ibid, p. 256, n. 12). It is not known how many of the small scale bronzes were produced, and it has been suggested (personal correspondence from Anthea Brook) that Damiano Capelli, among other workshop assistants, may have been responsible for some of them.