Bronze, Boxwood, and Ivory in the Robert H. Smith Collection of Renaissance Sculpture A second supplement to the catalogue volume Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500–1650 Bronze, Boxwood, and Ivory in the Robert H. Smith Collection of Renaissance Sculpture EIKE D. SCHMIDT, DYLAN SMITH, ALISON LUCHS, SHELLEY STURMAN, KAREN SERRES, EMILY PEGUES, KATHERINE MAY, JUDY OZONE & SIMONA CRISTANETTI A second supplement to the catalogue volume Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500–1650 Published by Cover illustration: Leonhard Kern Lust (cat. 75) Inside front cover: Gérard van Opstal Detail of Bacchanalian Frieze (cat. 79) Inside back cover: Francesco Fanelli Detail of Turk on Horseback Attacked by a Lion (cat. 72) Back cover illustration: Nicolò Roccatagliata Cleopatra (cat. 69) Photography by Lee Ewing Digital radiography by Dylan Smith and James Gleason © Text by Eike D. Schmidt, Dylan Smith, Alison Luchs, Shelley Sturman, Karen Serres, Emily Pegues, Katherine May, Judy Ozone, Simona Cristanetti First published in the UK by The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. 2015 All right reserved. Printed in England by Stephens & George Printers Limited, Wales ISSN 0007 6287 2 CONTENTS Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 PART ONE: BRONZE STATUETTES 66. African Bather (‘Black Venus’), probably workshop of Johann Gregor van der Schardt ...............................................6 67. Neptune on a Dolphin, Hubert Gerhard....................................................................................................................................................................................................14 68. Doorknocker, Circle of Hubert Gerhard....................................................................................................................................................................................................20 69. Cleopatra, Nicolò Roccatagliata .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................25 70. Seated Bagpiper, Giovanni Francesco Susini after a model by Giovanni Bologna ..............................................................29 71. Kneeling Bather Taken by Surprise, Giovanni Francesco Susini after a model by Giovanni Bologna....................................................................................................................................................................................................34 72. Turk on Horseback Attacked by a Lion, Francesco Fanelli..............................................................................................................................................38 PART TWO: LEONHARD KERN AND THE ART OF WOODCARVING............................................................42 73. Gymnast Throwing a Sphere (‘The Bowler’), Leonhard Kern..................................................................................................................................44 74. Kneeling Youth with Bound Hands, Leonhard Kern ...............................................................................................................................................................48 75-76. Lust and Avarice, Leonhard Kern..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................52 77. Psyche, Leonhard Kern...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................57 PART THREE: IVORY CARVING IN THE AGE OF RUBENS; ON IVORY AND CARVING..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................61 78. Diana with her Hounds, Circle of Leonhard Kern....................................................................................................................................................................63 79. Bacchanalian Frieze, Gérard van Opstal ...................................................................................................................................................................................................67 80. Omphale, Artus Quellinus the Elder...............................................................................................................................................................................................................70 Bibliographical abbreviations ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................74 Summary of alloy analysis..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................76 3 Detail of Doorknocker with Mask, Monsters and Putto (cat.68) INTRODUCTION This, the second supplement to the catalogue of the Robert H. Smith collection of Renaissance sculpture, could not begin more fittingly. In 1978, Mr. Smith acquired his first bronze, Antonio Susini’s Nessus and Deianara (cat. 26), but it was a different sculpture that first inspired him to become a serious collector. Earlier that year, as he later described, he had had an encounter with “a sensuous Renaissance bronze of a negress holding a mirror displayed in a solitary glass case,” then on view at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, part of a private collection. He was instantly smitten. Although that particular statuette eluded him, he patiently waited until 2006, when the bronze that opens this supplement – African Bather (cat. 66) –a fine version of the “negress” he had seen in Zurich – appeared on the market. He wasted no time in acquiring it, thrilled to fulfill a dream born nearly three decades earlier. African Bather is the sixty-sixth of the eighty sculptures that now constitute the world-class collection Mr. Smith formed during his lifetime. The first thirty of his bronzes were catalogued by Anthony Radcliffe in 1994. A second edition, co-authored by Radcliffe and Nicholas Penny, appeared in 2004 and includes twenty-four new entries, as well as a technical essay by Shelley Sturman. The next ten acquisitions were published in 2007 as a supplement to The Burlington Magazine. In 2008, Mr. Smith celebrated his collection by announcing plans for it to become an eventual gift to the National Gallery of Art and putting an extensive selection of it on temporary display there, recorded in an illustrated booklet by Karen Serres, the former Robert H. Smith Research Curator, and Dylan Smith, who remains the Robert H. Smith Research Conservator. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith continued to add to his already formidable collection with seven more bronze sculptures, for a total of seventy-two. Along with these seven bronzes, this supplement also publishes a less well-known aspect of Mr. Smith’s collecting: the small but distinguished group of boxwoods and ivories that he began acquiring in 1996. He owned five boxwoods, all by the German master Leonhard Kern, who is also represented in the collection with a bronze (cat. 65) and an ivory from his circle (cat. 78). These form the strongest collection of Kern’s work outside Europe. The remaining two ivories are equally superb and both by Netherlanders: Gérard van Opstal (cat. 79) and Artus Quellinus the Elder (cat. 80). In combining art historical analysis with technical examination, this supplement follows the first, with each entry written jointly by a curator and a conservator. Mr. Smith was an ardent proponent of such collaborations, funding curatorial and conservation positions at his cherished National Gallery of Art, where he served on the Board of Trustees between 1985 and 2003. Since Mr. Smith’s death in 2009, his family – particularly his wife, Clarice, and daughter, Michelle – has kept his legacy alive with a generous gift to the Gallery that has permitted numerous initiatives in the field of technical art history. This supplement, like the last one, embodies the close working relationship that the departments of sculpture and object conservation enjoy at the Gallery, a relationship that owes so much to Mr. Smith and his ceaseless yearning to know everything he could about his sculptures. In addition to the colleagues thanked individually in the notes, we are grateful to Debra Pincus for invaluable editorial counsel; to Chris Hall at The Burlington Magazine for his good-humored and patient labor on layouts; and to Emily Pegues for heroic work on coordinating the complex contributions of multiple authors. Nicholas Penny has remained, with our gratitude, a guiding spirit throughout. C. D. Dickerson III and Shelley