Lot 68: [ ITALIAN MEDALS ]

GIOVANNI BOLDÙ (active c. 1454-1477) Self-Portrait, bronze medal, 1458, ?????? ???????? ?OG??F?? ???????? (Giovanni Boldù, painter of Venice), nude bust to left, wearing ivy-wreath in hair, rev., OPVS IOANS BOLDV PICTORIS VENETVS XOGRAFI (the work of Giovanni Boldù, painter of Venice), the artist seated, naked, his head in his hands while before him a putto (Genius of Death) holds a flame and contemplates a skull; dated below, MC[CCC]LVIII, 85mm (Hill 421; Arm I, 36, 1; Pollard 163 = Kress 142; Hill, Artists, 9; Scher 27), plugged and with small copper repair let into edge below bust, a very fine contemporary cast

Provenance: Morton & Eden, 27 June 2006, lot 373. One of the earliest self-portrait medals of the Renaissance, this example is 'as cast' without evidence of chasing, and traces of the casting sprue can be seen on the edge at the end of the Greek inscription on the obverse. For a discussion of the artist, who, like Pisanello, signed himself as a painter, see Scher in Currency of Fame, pp. 102-103.