Horse and Bull in patinated bronze

Italy, second half of the 18th century.
Bronze with brown patina ; yellow marble base.

These bronze groups with brown patina forming a pendant and representing the Passing Horse and the Passing Bull, the very incarnation of the ancient period in the art of Baroque sculpture, originally correspond to the works of the famous Italian sculptor Antonio Susini (1558-1624) , considered one of the greatest artists of his time. Each of our sculptures, the horse on the left and the bull on the right, is presented on a yellow marble base oriented towards each other. Their posture chosen by the sculptor perfectly embodies what can be described today as traditional equestrian and bovine representations inspired by Antiquity which, in fact, were very fashionable from the Renaissance until the end of the neoclassicism. The subjects are captured from life, the noble step, the raised bust filled with pride, which certainly allowed our sculptor to express here his exceptional dexterity and mastery of his art. The animals parade, perfectly anchored to the ground, and project their torsos upwards and forwards. Their eyes are large and very expressive. However, these two subjects were initially conceived independently of each other.

If Giambologna (1529-1608) imagined two models of horse, one with a cut mane, the other with a floating mane, taken from the equestrian statue of Cosimo I de Medici made between 1587 and 1585, and presented on the Piazza beautiful Signoria in Florence, this Horse in passage with delicate contraposto takes up the third animal model created by Antonio Susini : the raised right front leg responds to the left hind leg; the right hind leg responds to the left front leg placed on the ground. His head is turned slightly to the right. The body is powerful and shows great, subtle mastery of the musculature in tension translated by the dynamism, the sense of movement, and the extreme precision of the modeling down to the smallest details, in particular the rendering of the visible veins running along the along the sides. Perfectly chiseled, an opulent mane placed on the left side of the horse here accentuates the immediacy of the moment, and the tail, almost touching the ground, contributes to the remarkable balance of the whole. Tracing the origins of famous ancient prototypes, it is notable that the representation of horses was an important genre in bronze sculpture since the 15th century. The horse, to which Leon Battista Alberti dedicated an essay, seemed to have greatly fascinated artists while the animals themselves were collected as diplomatic gifts. The subject, interpreted as a leitmotif through the works of John of Bologna and his followers, was sought after for its liveliness, an expression of the natural power of the animal.

Among the most beautiful examples made by Susini listed, a Pacing Horse made around 1600 and signed by the artist is today kept in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inv. A.11-1924). Regarding another example, a Pacing Horse made in 1628 by his nephew Giovan Francesco Susini (1575-1653) after a model by Giambologna and Antonio Susini, is presented in the Galleria Colonna in Rome.

Concerning the Pacing Bull, the first statuette would have been designed after the first model of horse by Giambologna and would correspond to the example from the Medici collections kept today at the Bargello museum in Florence (inv. 287). The subject has, with some ready details, the same artistic expression as for the horse. The only differences lie in the physical and biological characteristics of the two animals. In fact, only the bull's left front leg is raised. Its head is this time turned slightly to the right and the extreme power of the animal is reflected in the perfect chiseling of the neck and the musculature of the rear part on which the tail whips with great intensity. The bull would have evoked for the artist the considerable influence of ancient art and mythology on his work. Certain hypotheses therefore put forward the idea that he would probably have been inspired, for the creation of the bull, by representations of the Egyptian god Apis, god of fertility, power and physical strength and represented, in his animal form, by a bull.

Made in bronze then distributed throughout Europe, notably thanks to the workshop of Antonio Susini, examples of this model were found in the greatest collections. We can mention a copy which was in the Crown collections and which belonged to Louis XIV himself, the casting of which is attributed to Susini, copy mentioned under number 279 : "A bull with its tail curled up on its back ; nine inches high, and ten inches long all inclusive, estimated one hundred and twenty pounds" now kept in a private collection. Another bronze was kept in the collections of Cardinal Richelieu who indeed owned among his bronzes a bull made by "messer Jean de Bologne repaired by Soucine". Finally, let us mention the Galerie de Girardon which also presented "9. a small bronze bull after the Antique by J. de Boulogne, repaired by A. Soucine".

ANTONIO SUSINI
Born in Florence in 1558, Antonio Susini was one of the eminent Italian Baroque sculptors of the Florentine school. After his apprenticeship as a goldsmith, in 1580 he joined Giambologna's workshop at Borgo Pinti, where he became one of the main collaborators. Although the latter was not a foundryman, he had gotten into the habit of entrusting this task, among others, to Susini, specialized in bronze statuettes, whose casting and finishing process he managed to improve. These qualities allowed him to make prints of ancient statues and the works of his master. If the bronzes of Giambologna were made by a wide variety of founders, it was under the control of Susini that they reached an unequaled level. of sophistication. He did not hesitate to modify them either, sometimes to the point of creating new models. Several discoveries in archives suggest that Susini designed his own for small bronzes, in particular representing horses. He remained in his master's workshop until 1600, when he opened his own workshop and developed his own style identifiable by his design of details, always produced with great precision and a remarkable finish. Numerous 17th century art history works praise the sculptor for the great refinement of his carvings and the high degree of finish he could give them. Crowned with European fame, Antonio Susini died in his hometown in 1624, aged sixty-six.

Very good condition.