Reliquary bust of a bishop-saint

This gilt bronze bust of a bishop-saint was meant to be a reliquary. The figure’s hair is tonsured, his slight beard and wavy mustache neatly trimmed. The front of the cope shows Peter, Paul, and two other heads of saints; on the back, a seated Faith holds a cross and chalice above a swath of floral ornamentation. The relic would have been placed under the clear glass morse (clasp). According to Richard Stone, the head and lower portion were each indirectly cast in a low-alloy bronze, then soldered together.[1] The chasing of the cope is rough, but that of the facial features, although schematic, is effective in the delineation of the goatee, the deep wrinkles etched in the corners of the eyes, and the simplified locks of hair. The surface is scratched and has apparently suffered, possibly due to the use of the bust.

Our bishop-saint is part of a series of at least four reliquary busts in which different heads were mounted on an identical base. Serial production of the lower portion would explain its mediocre execution. The group includes a bust in the Seattle Art Museum (fig. 156a) and two in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (54.734 and 54.735). The Met and Seattle bronzes were sold by Blumka, New York (in 1964 and 1971, respectively). Their ownership history is murky, although the Seattle bust has been tentatively traced to the Richard von Kaufmann sale in Berlin in 1917 (fig. 156b).[2] While the three heads are indeed similar, Seattle’s has more beard growth than ours, and the ex-Kaufmann has no facial hair at all. The latter should therefore be considered an additional cast in the series (five total) and its whereabouts unknown.

An attribution to Bastiano Torrigiani was suggested when our bust was purchased by Irwin Untermyer in 1964.[3] An expert founder active mostly in Rome, where he became a favorite of Sixtus V, Torrigiani was known for casting the colossal Saint Peter and Saint Paul that surmount the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.[4] His vivid and beautifully executed small bronzes demonstrate that his talents far surpassed the rather cursory skills of the reliquary series maker.[5] The dating and production context of this series, however, align with Torrigiani’s Roman career. Post-Tridentine Catholicism revitalized the cult of relics; churches housed them in newly provided chapels that often contained a display of reliquary busts. The Met bust and its companions were likely once part of such a display. The finest cast of the bishop-saints is Walters 54.734, with its penetrating gaze, luxuriant beard, and carefully defined helmet of hair. The other Walters head is distinctively neomedieval, possibly a reflection of the Counter-Reformation rediscovery and reuse of early Christian symbols and iconography. Stylistically, the heads of the bishop-saints and the figures represented on the cope date to the last decade of the sixteenth or the early seventeenth century. The sculptor/caster of the entire series was undoubtedly one of the many founders active in Rome at the dawn of the Baroque era.
-FL

Footnotes
(For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.)


1. R. Stone/TR, November 1, 2010.
2. Letter from curator Julie Emerson, SAM, to James David Draper, October 5, 1988, ESDA/OF. 3. ESDA/OF.
4. For Torrigiani’s work, see Lamouche 2011 and 2012.
5. Ostrow 2015.