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Auction: 8004 - An Important Collection of Renaissance Medals & Plaquettes
Lot: 46

Paduan School (16th century) Battle of Sea Gods, rectangular bronze plaquette, 78.5mm. x 197mm., a good old cast, grey-brown patina, old paper label stuck to reverse Neptune in the centre, in a chariot pulled by two hippocamps, holds a dolphin in his left hand and an unidentified object in his right. In the waves below are the bodies of marine centaurs and tritons. To the left a triton grasps one of the hippocamps by the neck while another escapes, and to the right a third struggles with a female figure. The composition is similar in part to an inkwell in the Castiglioni collection (the bronzes catalogued by Planiscig, Vienna 1923, no.14), which shows the marine centaurs to the left, and another in the Kress collection (490), which shows Neptune and the figures to the left, and adds a further triton on the extreme left side. Also of note here is the plaquette of the triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite in Berlin (Bange 1922, 536) attributed to a Paduan artist under the influence of Mantegna, working in the early 16th century (the present plaquette is probably later than this but shows the same influences) and also the plaquette in the Museo Correr in Venice (Molinier 592). All probably derive from classical sarcophagi, such as the sarcophagus of Neptune and a Marine Thiasus in the Cortile della Pigna, in the Vatican. We do not know of any other examples of this plaquette. Estimate £ 300-400

Sold for
£600