Lot 11: A large late 15th / early 16th century bronze figural group of Venus and Cupid formerly attributed to Johann Gregor van der Schardt (Flemish, circa 1530-ater 1581), or Jérôme Duquesnoy Jr. (Flemish, 1602-1654), circa 1570-1640

A large late 15th / early 16th century bronze figural group of Venus and Cupid
formerly attributed to Johann Gregor van der Schardt (Flemish, circa 1530-ater 1581), or Jérôme Duquesnoy Jr. (Flemish, 1602-1654), circa 1570-1640the nude goddess standing in contrapposto looking to sinister, her hands above the infant Cupid, the separately cast putto gesticulating up at her, dark brown mottled and lacquered patina, raised on a later polished wood circular shallow plinth base, 41cm high, 45cm high including base

Provenance: A.C.J. Wall collection, Middleton Park, Oxon.This unpublished group of Venus and Cupid is related to a series of other known examples with a female figure standing in a similar position to that of Venus, but in a variety of different contexts, which leads to a complex situation with regard to the attribution of the original composition as follows:I) In a group with the two figures integrally cast with a large dolphin, doubled up beneath their feet to act as a fountain, once in the Farnese collection in Parma and now in the Capodimonte Museum, Naples. It has been connected (H. R. Weihrauch, Europäischen Bronzestatuetten, Braunschweig, 1967, pp. 324-25, fig. 394) with an item noted in his account book by Willibald Imhoff of Nuremburg in 1572, a model by 'Jan de Zara' (i.e. J. G. van der Schardt) of 'a woman with the child, representing Maritime Fortune'. The sculptor had also executed portraits in polychrome terracotta of Imhoff and his wife (Berlin).II) In another series of statuettes she is shown with a sea-snail shell extended in her right hand and resting her weight on a tree-stump at the opposite side. An example of this was shown in a painting of 1652 by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), standing high up on top of a wooden doorway or cupboard, in the collection of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels, when Governor of the Spanish Netherlands (both statuette and painting are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). It stands on an integrally cast square plinth, which accounts for its greater height than the present figure of 49.2cm. This model has been attributed to Jérôme Duquesnoy Jr., who was the Archduke's court-sculptor, independently by Leithe-Jasper and Avery (M. Leithe-Jasper, Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1986, pp. 274-76). Some other examples are: Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; formerly New York, Washington, Arthur M. Sackler Collection, sold Sotheby's, New York, 29 January 2010, lot 459; Toledo, Ohio, Museum of Art).III) A nearly identical, but more lightly cast, bronze of Venus appeared on the art market a little before 2010 with the initials, 'F.F.F.', of Francesco Fanelli (1577- after 1657), but there is no particular reason to suppose that it was he who invented the composition. If this were the case, then clearly Weihrauch's attribution to Van der Schardt in 1572 would fall by the wayside.With the emergence of the present particularly attractive figural group, further study may therefore elucidate the situation.