Property fro෴m the Collection of Professor James Fenton
Circle of Maso Finiguerra
Hercules and Antaeus
Auction Closed
January 26, 04:31 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from 🐎the C﷽ollection of Professor James Fenton
Circle of Maso Finiguerra
Hercules and Antaeus
Pen and brown ink and red chalk, ☂on vellum, some of the outlines pricked
312 by 206 mm; 12¼ by 8⅛ in.
John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929), London;
sale, Amsterdam, Mensing, 21 November 1927, lot 4;
Victor Koch;
Sir Thomas Merton (1888-1969), London,
thence by descent,
sale, London, Christie's, 11 December 1979, lot 26 (as Follower of Antonio Pollaiuolo),
Ian Woodner (1903-1990), New York,
thence by descent,
sale, London, Christie's, 6 July 1999, lot 1,
where purchased by the present owner
R. van Marle, The development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague 1929, XI, p. 366;
B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago 1938, II, no. 1910B (as School of Antonio Pollajuolo);
A. Sabatini, Antonio e Piero Pollaiuolo, Florence 1944, p. 94;
A. Scharf, A Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings from the Collection of Sir Thomas Merton, F.R.S., London 1950, no. XX
A connection has previously been made between the present work and Antonio del Pollaiuolo's portrayals of Hercules and Antaeus, both in bronze and tempera (see Literature). The hand🐓ling of our drawing is, however, more consistent with the graphic style of Pollaiuolo's Florentine contemporary, Maso Finguerra.
The two main holdings of Finiguerra’s drawings are in the Uffizi, and in the Louvre. The former group most probably came from fourteen albums bequeathed by Maso to a member of his family and later in the collection of Leopoldo de’ Medici, while the Louvre has the 'album Bonnat', a small volume containing twenty-three drawings by the artist.1 That album seems to be one and the same as a volume of forty-six drawings attributed to Antonio Pollaiolo which was stolen from the Uffizi on 17 August 1793, and subsequently entered the collection of Lèon Bonnat.2 It is interesting to❀ note tha🥂t the drawings by Maso in the Uffizi were long held there under the name of ‘scuola di Antonio del Pollaiolo’.
The subject of Hercules and Antaeus was particularly popular among Florentine artists of the period, as Hercules was regarded, in his ruthless and warlike spirit, to be a reflection of the Florentine state. Antaeus was the son of Gaia, goddess of the Earth, and while battling Hercules was reinvigorated by contact with the earth each time he was felled. It is for this reason that Hercules has to hold Antaeus aloft above the ground and it is in this pose that the fighting🌼 duo are so frequently portrayed.
1. See L. Melli, Maso Finiguerra. I disegni, Florence 1995, pp. 27-55
2. Ibid., p. 43