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Auction: 390 - Renaissance Plaquettes and Commemorative Medals featuring the Neil A. Goodman Collection - e-Auction
Lot: 127

FLORENTINE SCHOOL, 15th Century
Abundance. Oval Plaquette. Bronze, 41 x 51mm. Veiled and laureate bust of a woman - Abundance or Antonia, wife of Drusus Senior, cast as Ceres -- facing ¾ right, wearing a necklace and holding a cornucopia, within an oval frame adorned with foliate scrolls; and inscription around: +HOC. OPVS.E. FRVGES.EFVNDO.COPIA.CORNV., the Barbo shield surmounted by a cardinal's hat below. Molinier 672; Bange 166 (as 16th Century); Cannata p. 11, fig 3a-3b; Firenze, Museo Nazionale, 24; Kress 265; Maclagen p.15 (as after the antique); Paris, Louvre, Migeon, 384; Ricci, pp 41-42, no. 45 (as Florentine, 15th Century); Rizzini 135; Rizzoli 17.
This attractive plaquette derives from an antique amethyst cameo once in the collection of Pope Paul II, now in the Cabinet de Médailles, Paris, no. 2080 (vide: A Furtwängler, "Die antiken Gemmen", pl. XLI, 36). The mount is reproduced on this piece showing us that the gem was once owned by Pietro Barbo while he was cardinal (1451-1464). Ricci asserts that the gem was for a time in the Medici collection, and that the plaquette is therefore Florentine. Other scholars believe that it was cast during the papacy of Paul II in the foundries located at the Palazzo Venezia: making it among the earliest cast plaquettes. Pierced. Medium brown patina. A pleasing near Extremely Fine early cast Ex "An Important Collection of Renaissance Medals and Plaquettes, Spink, London, January 23, 2008, lot 5.
From the Neil A. Goodman Collection

Sold for
$4,250

Starting price
$550