This unpublished small bronze group corresponds perfectly with the description of an item of unknown authorship once in the Florentine collection of G.B Borri, a tailor (‘Un Gruppettino Senza Base con una Figurina, ed una Strega’ (‘A little group without a base with a figurine and a witch’). The unusual subject of a witch was linked by Zikos with a bigger group of A Witch Riding a Goat that has been attributed to Pietro Tacca, or his son (and successor from 1641 as Grand-Ducal sculptor) Ferdinando, who was in turn the first master of the bronze sculptor Damiano Cappelli. That group in Dresden, furthermore, belongs to a much broader series of subjects connected with witchcraft, often centred on a leaping goat (See Avery, 1993, pp.87-89). This type of shaggy – haired goat is associable with the prey in four hunts that may have been invented by Ferdinando Tacca, particularly a leaping boar, of which some casts are signed (or initialled DCF) by Cappelli (See Warren 2010, no. 9).

To anyone familiar with Italian bronze figures, the attractive female figure of Virtue, with her strong contrapposto, elegant swaying and spiralling stance and small, elaborately coiffed head, will recall a Venetian late 16th century figure of Judith having decapitated Holofernes whose head lies beneath her proper right foot, though – perhaps to partially disguise the borrowing – her raised and lowered arms are reversed. The present variant figure is a little taller, at 25 cm, compared with Judith’s 19.4 cm, and so cannot have been cast directly from this prototype. The dark vanish over the underlying copper coloured alloy is consistent with that favoured in the workshops following from Giambologna’s later in the 17th century.

The identification of this seemingly unique small group is another exciting step in the re-integration of the work of Cappelli as begun by Zikos and Brook earlier in the 21st century.

Dr Charles Avery

Related Literature:

C. Avery, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in the Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh, 1993, pp.87-89, no. 22

J. Warren, Beauty and Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Peter Marino Collection, London, 2010, pp.110-113, no. 9