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Auction: 6013 - Edward III (Double Leopard) The Hilary F Guard Collection of Manx Related Items Ancient, Islamic, English & Foreign Coi
Lot: 294

Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519), bronze portrait medal, c.1505, Mantuan school, lucretia borgia esten ferrariae mvt ac regii d, bust left, in high relief, a tress of her hair braided and tied behind, rev. virtvti· ac· formae· pvdicitia·praeciossimvm, a blindfolded cupid tied to a tree, to which various attributes are attached, 60mm. (Armand 1, 118/3; Hill Corpus 233), small piercing at 12 o´clock, a superb portrait medal with attractive patination, extremely fine, extremely rare Estimate £ 6,000-7,000PROVENANCE: Hess auction 248, 24-25 October 1978, lot 1080 Glendining, 10 June 1987, lot 269 Lucrezia Borgia became Duchess of Ferrara in 1505 on the accession of her third husband, Alfonso I d´Este, as Duke. The bust is copied from an earlier study c.1502 (Armand II, 118/3; Corpus 232; Kress 79), which was made for her marriage to Alfonso. The reverse derives from a design by Niccolo Fiorentino showing Virginity tying Love to a tree, which was taken up by Moderno for his ´Death of Orpheus´ plaquette (c.1500-1502). It was clearly much to the taste of the Mantuan court, as a simplified version, without the attributes, was used on medals of Jacoba Correggia and Maddelena Rossi. Jean de Foville proposed an attribution to Melioli ("Le médailleur ´à l´Amour capfif´," in Gzette des Beaux-Arts 39 (1908) pp385-393), a suggestion which Hill doubted, but which Scher has ´tentatively proposed reviving´ (Currency of Fame, 20, note 5)

Sold for
£5,000