Lot 95: ATTRIBUTED TO GIUSEPPE SANMARTINO (1720-1793)ITALIAN, NAPLES, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

THE ARCHANGEL ST. MICHAEL VANQUISHING THE DEVIL the reverse inscribed in pencil: 8205 terracotta 55.5cm., 21 7/8 in.

This dynamic terracotta group compares closely with the work of the Neapolitan Baroque sculptor Giuseppe Sanmartino. St Michael's pose, with one arm raised, head slightly lowered, and one foot trampling on his vanquished enemy, is very similar to that of his Archangel St. Michael in Monopoli cathedral (Catello, op. cit., p. 89). The attribution to Sanmartino is confirmed when the present group is compared with a number of the sculptor's other terracotta bozzetti. In particular, note the crisp incised decoration adorning the habit of his Bozzetto of St. Philip Neri in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Catello, op. cit., p. 68); this is conceived in a near-identical manner to the decoration on the Archangel's cuirass and shield. Also compare with his signed terracotta St. Vincent Ferrer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1996.93), in which the saint's wings are modelled in an analagous way to those of St. Michael in the present bozzetto. RELATED LITERATURE J. Hecht, '"I'm No Angel": A Terracotta Model of Saint Vincent Ferrer by Giuseppe Sanmartino', Metropolitan Museum Journal 37, 2002, pp. 229-238; E. Catello, Giuseppe Sanmartino (1720-1793), Naples, 2004, pp. 32, 68 and 89