Self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius

This plaquette depicts the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius, jumping, on horseback, into a gap at the Forum in Rome. The piece comprised part of a series of Roman histories, together with those of Horatius Cocles and Mucius Scaevola. Weber lists two versions in lead of the Marcus Curtius plaquette (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel) and one in bronze (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich).(1) In 1952 the entire series was ascribed to Adam van Vianen, but a later attribution to his brother Paulus, based on the stylistic similarities with his signed plaquette of Cadmus and the dragon, is more convincing.(2)

Catalogue entry from: Frits Scholten. The Robert Lehman Collection. European Sculpture and Metalwork, Vol. XII. Frits Scholten, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 184-85.

NOTES:
1. Weber, Ingrid. Deutsche, niederländische und französische Renaissanceplaketten, 1500-1650: Modelle für Reliefs an Kult-, Prunk- und Gebrauchsgegenständen. 2 vols. Munich, 1975, nos. 921.1, 921.3.
2. Catalogus van goud en zilverwerken: Benevens zilveren, loden en bronzen plaquetten. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1952, no. 428; Ter Molen, Johannes Rein. Van Vianen: Een Utrechtse familie van zilversmeden met een internationale faam. 2 vols. Leiderforp, 1984, vol. 2, nos. 71, 74.

Robert Lehman, New York