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Bronze Sculpture in the Renaissance

• 
  Cincinnatus at the Plough, mid-15th century
  Filarete, Antonio di Pietro Averlino (known as Il Filarete) (Italian, ca. 1400–ca. 1469)
  Italy (Rome)
  Bronze

  2 1/2 x 5 5/16 in. (6.4 x 13.6 cm)
  Edith Perry Chapman Fund, 1996 (1996.116)

• 
  David with the Head of Goliath, 15th century (1470–80)
  Bartolomeo Bellano (Italian, Paduan, 1437/38–1496/97)
  Gilt bronze, oil gilding of later date

  H. 11 1/4 in. (28.6 cm)
  Gift of C. Ruxton Love Jr., 1964 (64.304.1)

• 
  Paris, ca. 1500
  Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi) (Italian, ca. 1460–1528)
  Bronze, partly gilt and silvered

  H. 14 3/8 in. (37.2 cm)
  Edith Perry Chapman Fund, 1955 (55.93)

• 
  Satyr, ca. 1510–20
  Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi) (Italian, ca. 1460–1528)
  Italy (Mantua)
  Bronze

  H. 12 in. (30.5 cm)
  The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982 (1982.60.91)

• 
  Combat at a City Gate, early 16th century
  Il Riccio (Andrea Briosco) (Italian, 1470–1532)
  Italy (Padua)
  Bronze

  3 7/16 x 4 in. (8.7 x 10.2 cm)
  The Erich Lederer Collection, Gift of Mrs. Erich Lederer, 1986 (1986.319.30)

• 
  Satyr, Statuette, 16th century (ca. 1506–8)
  Il Riccio (Andrea Briosco) (Italian, Paduan, 1470–1532)
  Made in Padua, Italy
  Bronze

  H. 14 1/8 in. (35.9 cm)
  Purchase, Gifts of Irwin Untermyer, Ogden Mills and George Blumenthal, Bequest of Julia H. Manges and Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, by exchange; and Rogers and Pfeiffer Funds, 1982 (1982.45)

• 
  Oil lamp, ca. 1515
  Andrea Briosco, called Riccio (Italian, 1470–1532)
  Padua
  Bronze

  H. 9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm)
  European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Fund, 2009 (2009.58)

• 
  Triton, 16th century (1560–70)
  Giovanni Bologna, called Giambologna (ca. 1529–1608)
  Made in Florence, Italy
  Bronze

  H. 36 in. (91.4 cm)
  Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.689)

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Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin (as opposed to brass, an alloy of copper and zinc) to which other elements may be added in smaller amounts. A durable material, bronze can receive various patinations, such as gilding. It was used for the casting of artillery and utilitarian objects such as mortars, but in the fifteenth century it came increasingly into use for the casting of sculpture. Many European cities had bronze foundries, but Florence saw the first true flowering of bronze sculpture. The main monuments there are the two pairs of bronze doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti on the Baptistery (1404–24 and 1425–52) and several key works of Donatello. To the north, as in the Vischer family's Shrine of Saint Sebaldus in Nuremberg (1507–19), a brassier metal was preferred, but the lustrous reddish bronze of Florence set the standard.

Many European cities had bronze foundries, but Florence saw the first true flowering of bronze sculpture.

Related

Cited Works of Art or Images (2)

• 
• 

Timelines (8)

• Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, 1600–1800 A.D.
• Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Florence and Central Italy, 1600–1800 A.D.
• France, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Low Countries, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Rome and Southern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Venice and Northern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.

Primary Thematic Essays (6)

• Direct versus Indirect Casting of Small Bronzes in the Italian Renaissance
• Donatello (ca. 1386–1466)
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680)
• The Nude in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• Patronage at the Later Valois Courts (1461–1589)
• The Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity

Other Thematic Essays (27)

• American Bronze Casting
• American Neoclassical Sculptors Abroad
• Ancient Greek Bronze Vessels
• The Art, Form, and Function of Gilt Bronze in the French Interior
• Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)
• Augustus Saint–Gaudens (1848–1907)
• Bronze Statuettes of the American West, 1850–1915
• Cameo Appearances
• Collecting for the Kunstkammer
• Dutch and Flemish Artists in Rome
• Edgar Degas (1834–1917): Bronze Sculpture
• Elizabethan England
• Fire Gilding of Arms and Armor
• The Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs, 1400–1600
• Jean–Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875)
• Late Medieval German Sculpture
• Late Medieval German Sculpture: Materials and Techniques
• Late Medieval German Sculpture: Polychromy and Monochromy
• List of Rulers of Europe
• Mannerism: Bronzino (1503–1572) and his Contemporaries
• Northern Mannerism in the Early Sixteenth Century
• The Opera
• Pastoral Charms in the French Renaissance
• Prague during the Rule of Rudolph II (1583–1612)
• Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function
• Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China
• Sixteenth–Century Painting in Lombardy

Maps (1)

• World, 1400–1600 a.d.

Index Terms (26)

Art Movement/Style

• Art of the Quattrocento in Renaissance Europe
• The High Renaissance in Europe

Artist

• Antico, or Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi (Italian, ca. 1460–1528)
• Bellano, Bartolomeo (Italian, Paduan, 1437/38–1496/97)
• Donatello (Italian, ca.1386–1466)
• Filarete, Antonio di Pietro Averlino, known as Il Filarete (Italian, ca. 1400–ca. 1469)
• Ghiberti, Lorenzo (Italian, Florentine, ca. 1378–1455)
• Giambologna, or Giovanni Bologna (Italian, Florentine, ca. 1529–1608)
• Riccio, Il, or Andrea Briosco (Italian, Paduan, 1470–1532)
• Vries, Adriaen de (Netherlandish, 1545/46–1626)

Geography/Place

• European Renaissance Art
• Rome (Ancient)

Material and Technique

• Bronze
• Bronze from Europe
• Gilt Silver
• Relief Sculpture from Europe
• Sculpture in the Round from Europe
• Sculpture in the Round from France
• Sculpture in the Round from the Italian Peninsula
• Sculpture in the Round from the Low Countries

Subject Matter/Theme

• Genre Scene from Europe
• Genre Scenes
• Mythological Figure
• Mythological Figure from Europe
• Satyr
• Secular Figure

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Collectors' taste for bronze statuettes coincided with an upsurge of interest in classical antiquity. The Mantuan Antico earned his nickname with highly refined reductions of Greco-Roman antiquities. Many of the first makers of statuettes were trained as goldsmiths, like Antico and the Paduan Riccio (2009.58).

Throughout the Renaissance, bronze was cast by the lost-wax method. Around 1500, founders developed the technology for replicating compositions. The first great entrepreneurs in casting and exquisitely patinating statuettes were the Flemish-born Mannerist Giovanni Bologna—known as Giambologna—and his assistants in Florence in the second half of the sixteenth century. Monumental bronze works had been carried out with éclat in Florence, notably Benvenuto Cellini's well-loved Perseus (1545–54). It was Giambologna, however, who was most influential in translating monument into statuette, and his sinuous art, based on the compositional principles of the figura serpentinata, was echoed by court sculptors all over Europe, including the Dutch-born Adriaen de Vries and the Munich-based Hubert Gerhard.

James David Draper Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Citation Draper, James David. "Bronze Sculpture in the Renaissance". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/scbz/hd_scbz.htm (October 2002) Further Reading Bode, Wilhelm. The Italian Bronze Statuettes of the Renaissance. New ed. New York: De Reinis, 1980. Related exhibitions and online features Special Exhibitions (including upcoming, current, and past exhibitions) Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions Other Online Features The Art of Renaissance Europe: A Resource for Educators

These related Museum Bulletin or Journal articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship. Bodnár, Szilvia. "Two Fragments of a Renaissance Bronze Zodiac Frieze." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 42 (2007). Stone, Richard E. "Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the Quattrocento." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 16 (1981). JSTOR | PDF Freytag, Claudia. "Italienische Skulptur um 1400: Untersuchungen zu den Einflussbereichen." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 7 (1973). JSTOR | PDF Phillips, John Goldsmith. "Sculpture: Sacred and Profane." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New ser., v. 20, no. 7 (March, 1962). JSTOR | PDF Phillips, John Goldsmith. "A Shell, Two Saints, and a Bird." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New ser., v. 17, no. 9 (May, 1959) JSTOR | PDF