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Auction: 8004 - An Important Collection of Renaissance Medals & Plaquettes
Lot: 24

Moderno (late 15th century) The Flagellation, rectangular bronze plaquette, 135mm. x 99.5mm., an old cast, with slightly rough surfaces and some of the detail faint, medium brown patina In the centre Christ is tied to a column, his right hand raised above his head, his left tied behind him. At left a helmeted soldier raises a whip, and in the right foreground a male nude, also with a whip, prepares to strike. Behind the column are three other helmeted soldiers, two other male figures, and a horseman. Above is a double vault. The best version of this famous composition is the silver parcel-gilt plaquette in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which is signed on the base on which Christ stands OP MODERNO. All other examples are smaller. The figure of Christ is based on the Laocoon, unearthed in 1506. This statue which ´Pliny the Elder regarded as the finest of all works of art, was seen in Renaissance times as expressing the quintessence of pain and sorrow, as an exemplum dolores´ (Manfred Leithe-Jasper, Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, London, 1986; for the Moderno plaquette see pp.125-127) The two flagellants have been compared to the Dioscuri on Montecavallo, and Planiscig likens the figure on the right to a statue of the tyrannicides on display in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici-Madama in Rome, and known from a drawing by Martin van Heemskerck. . References Bange 1922, 453; Cannata 26; Cott p. 151; Kress 134; Frankfurt-on-Maine 17; London, British Museum, T.W. Greene, 36; Middeldorf 230, 231; Molinier 170; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 56; Ricci, ii, p. 132, no. 169; Rizzini 39; Venice, Museo Correr, 17 Estimate £ 800-1,200

Sold for
£900