Lot 81: FRANCESCO BERTOS (ACTIVE 1693-1739) VENETIAN, FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

the warriors on rearing steads with plumed helmets and dressed al' antica, heads thrown back, one with shield and sword raised, the other with baton and sword sheathed with his eyes closed

Quantity: 2

bronzes: 32.5cm., 12 3/4 in. bases: 12.2 by 20 by 15cm., 4 3/4 by 7 7/8 by 5 5/8 in.

Continental private collection

These bronze equestrian groups typify Bertos's highly individual style. As a skilled bronze-caster, Bertos was able to design complex yet graceful compositions which could be cast in very few pieces and sometimes in a single pour. His elongated figures, designed to convey the extremes of emotion, were influenced by sixteenth-century Florentine Mannerist sculpture.

The iconography of Bertos' bronzes is often difficult to decipher. In the present case, one of the riders might be identified as St. Paul at the moment of his conversion. Significantly, his eyes are closed and his head thrown back. His posture accords to someone temporarily blinded by divine light, with arms prostrate and his outstretched left hand shielding his face. The rearing horse assumes an equally startled pose. Since Renaissance times, Paul was depicted bearded and often wearing Roman armour, as he does here. He should also carry the attributes of a sword and book. While a sword is attached to his left hand side, his right hand holds the curious addition of a baton - although this could represent a tightly wrapped scroll, occasionally substituted for the book. However a baton is far more likely, representing the highest symbol of authority after the sovereign. The baton is always carried in the right hand, as in Titian's portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere and Michaleangelo's seated Giuliano dei Medici but more pertinently in both Verrochio's Colleoni and Donatello's Gattamelata equestrian monuments. Leonardo da Vinci also intended to depict his equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza with a baton. These sources would have been known to Bertos.

The identity of the pendant warrior with shield and brandished sword is more difficult to determine and could simply be one of Paul's companions on the road to Damascus. However it is more likely to represent a saint in armour, or 'warrior saint', such as St. Julian, whose attributes include a drawn sword, or St. James slaying the saracens. It has been suggested that the bronzes may have been intended to commemorate a battle against the Turks, a popular theme in Venice at this time. The idea deserves consideration as a secular equestrian bronze portrait in the Kunsthistorisches museum of a man in contemporary uniform with sword and baton is believed to depict Field Marshal Count von der Schulenburg, employed by Venice to repel the Turkish invasion of Corfu in 1716. In its chasing and general feel, it is very close to the present bronzes, although the horse is shown trotting and with a straight tail.

The rearing stallions, with their outstretched forelegs and swirling tails, are not dissimilar to the horse found in Bertos' large allegorical group of The Vintage (sold in these rooms 9 July 2004, lot 80), the marble group of The Triumph of Truth over Calumny illustrated by Viancini, or the equestrian group of The Allegory of Time with Ratton & Ladrière, Biennale, September 1990.

RELATED LITERATURE
W.L. Hildburgh, 'Some Bronze Groups by Francesco Bertos', Apollo 27, 1938
J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the V&A, London 1964
E. Viancini, 'Per Francesco Bertos', Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte, no.19 Venice 1994, pp.143-49
A.Bacchi, La Scultura a Venezia da Sansovino a Canova, Milan 2000, pp.698-700