Important European Bronzes

The exceptional bronzes presented here have been carefully selected, over the course of many years, to represent the Tomasso Bothers’ passion for this most fascinating material, and they range from the dawn of Italian humanism in the early 15th century to the high point of the Italian late Baroque. Highlights include a remarkable and rare relief depicting the Triumph of Caesar over King Juba by Italian artist Filarete (c. 1433), an exceptional and commanding Mars by Giambologna, Florence’s most prominent sculptor of the late Renaissance, and an exquisite and newly published autograph version of the Abduction of Proserpina by Franзois Girardon, King Louis XIV’s court sculptor. These are accompanied by further testimonies of the extraordinary development of European sculpture in bronze, such as a unique pair of allegorical statuettes by Francesco da Sangallo, a student and contemporary of Michelangelo, a rare Cristo Benedicente by Northern Italian master Giulio del Moro, and sacred and secular subjects by the most gifted heirs to Giambologna’s tradition, Antonio and Gianfrancesco Susini in Florence and, further North, Hans Reichle in Germany. The catalogue accompanies the exhibition Important European Bronzes, which was on display at Carlton Hobbs LLC in New York, 21–30 January 2016. Following on from the Tomassos’ three successful Scultura exhibitions in the United States, this is the company’s first major retrospective dedicated exclusively to sculpture in bronze.