GIUSTO LE COURT, KNOWN AS JOSSE LE CORT (1627-1678), ATTRIBU - Lot 273

Lot 273
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Estimation :
6000 - 8000 EUR
GIUSTO LE COURT, KNOWN AS JOSSE LE CORT (1627-1678), ATTRIBU - Lot 273
GIUSTO LE COURT, KNOWN AS JOSSE LE CORT (1627-1678), ATTRIBUTED White Carrara marble plaque sculpted in bas-relief representing the head of Bathsheba; the latter presented with her hair adorned with pearls, her forehead with a cabochon; she is dressed in a drapery held by a fibula on her left shoulder (plinth and upper left corner formerly flawed, showing a resin restoration that only sought to re-establish the geometrical balance of the work) H : 31,5 - W : 25,5 cm. Study of the work by Tomaso Montanari : "The relief must certainly have been part of a series of portraits of queens and empresses from antiquity, mythology and the Old Testament : a sort of baroque revisitation of the marble cycles of similar subject matter of the Renaissance. The stylistic characteristics clearly show that it is a work of the Venetian Seicento. Until recently, all reliefs of this kind were attributed, without discrimination, to Orazio Marinali and his workshop. Recently, Simone Guerriero has proposed to move this production en bloc to the name of Giovanni Bonazza (S. Guerriero, Le alterne fortune dei marmi: busti, teste di caratteree altre "scolture moderne" nelle collezioni veneziane tra Sei e del Settecento, in La scultura veneta del Seicento e del Settecento, nuovi studi, a cura di G. Pavanello, Venezia, 2002, pp.73-152). Now, the Bathsheba that is the subject of this study stands out from this serial production, and is distinguished by its sustained quality, both in terms of invention (note the unusual framing of three quarters instead of the more common profile) and the level of quality of the marble carving, which appears to be very high, especially in the rendering of the hair and the drapery. The sharpness with which the various surfaces are differentiated (Bathsheba's famous smooth skin, the garment, the hair, the luminous cleanliness of the pearls that intertwine with the silk crown that supports the hair) and the care with which the visible holes of the drill bit are used, seem to link this relief to the most beautiful and probably the oldest examples of this very particular sculptural vein. I am referring to the four profiles formerly in the collection of Federico Zeri, and now in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. Recently, Andrea Bacchi has proposed to consider the four reliefs as a kind of incunabulum of the genre, and to attribute them to the hand of Giusto Le Court, the father of Venetian Baroque sculpture, known as "the Adriatic Bernini" (A. Bacchi, "Le cose più belle e principali nelle chiese di Venezia sono opere sue": Giusto Le Court a Santa Maria della Salute (e altrove), in "Nuovi Studi", 12, anno XI, 2006, pp.145-158). The proposal appears very convincing both artistically and stylistically, and has the merit of distinguishing between prototypes and derivations: between Le Court's first inventions, and the very large production that probably Marinali and Bonazza, with their workshops, would feed for many years. In conclusion, it seems quite reasonable to add the remarkable Bathsheba to the oldest and most beautiful nucleus of Venetian heads in relief of the mid-Seicento, and therefore to attribute its invention and execution to the hand of Giusto Le Court.
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