Case 15 2013/14: A pair of bronze sculptures by Massimiliano SoldaniBenzi, The Wrestlers and The Knife Grinder
Expert adviser’s statement
Reviewing Committee Secretary’s note: Please note that any
illustrations referred to have not been reproduced on the Arts Council
England website
Description of the Bronzes: Antique Sources
The Wrestlers is a bronze figure group (h. approximately 91 cm.) based on
the marble (h. 89 cm.) now in the Tribuna at the Uffizi, Florence. It is signed
and dated on the side of the integral base: ‘MAXIMILIANUS SOLDANI BENZI
FLORENTIÆ 1711’.
The marble group had been excavated in Rome in 1583, and was bought by
Cardinal Ferdinando de’Medici, along with the marble Niobe Group, later the
same year. By 1688 it had been placed in the Tribuna in the Uffizi in Florence,
and it has been there ever since, apart from a brief interlude in the early
nineteenth century when it was removed to Palermo to escape the invading
French forces. The present bronze is one of a number of full-size bronze
versions of the celebrated antique group by Soldani; other versions in lead
and plaster were also known in the eighteenth century. A comparable bronze
version by Soldani dating from 1705-8, formerly at the Bayerisches
Nationalmuseum, Munich, is now lost. The marble had been restored soon
after it was discovered (the two heads and an arm were missing), and the
bronze reflects the restored group. Two nude men are engaged in a fight, and
the complex composition was considered to be of great academic value. The
seventeenth-century diarist John Evelyn commented that the ‘inextricable
mixture with each others armes and leggs’ was ‘plainely stupendious’.
The Knife Grinder (also known as the Arrotino) (h. approximately 94 cm.) is
likewise signed and dated on the side of the integral base: ‘MAXIMILIANUS
SOLDANI BENZI FLORENTIÆ 1711’. It too is based on an ancient marble (h.
105 cm.) now in the Tribuna at Florence, where it has been since 1688, again
with a brief interlude in the early nineteenth century, when it too was removed
for safekeeping to Sicily. The marble was first recorded in the sixteenth
century in Rome, and was subsequently purchased by Cardinal Ferdinando
de’Medici in 1587. Many copies of it were made, including smaller versions in
bronze, terracotta and plaster, as well as full-size bronzes such as the present
example. A man, half-kneeling and half-sitting, whets a knife, looking up as he
does so. The exact subject of the marble figure was hotly debated during the
renaissance and later. Thanks to the survival of an antique gem showing a
similar figure, the correct interpretation is almost certainly that the knife
grinder was part of a group depicting Apollo flaying Marsyas, the crouching
man seen here sharpening the knife which was to be used to flay the
unfortunate Marsyas, who had been defeated by the god in a musical contest.
Conceived as a pair, and complementing the other pair of bronzes made by
Soldani for Blenheim, the Medici Venus and the Dancing Faun, two other
antique figures also from the Tribuna in the Uffizi, these two sculptures rest on
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integral rectangular bronze bases. The precision of modelling and the
chiselling of the hands and facial features are characteristic of Soldani’s
finely-tuned style. The lively quality of casting also attests to the proficiency
with which the artist ran his workshop and supervised the foundry where the
bronzes were cast. According to a contemporary reference, Pietro Cipriani,
Soldani’s chief assistant, who later cast bronzes after the antique for the Earl
of Macclesfield, including the Medici Venus and the Dancing Faun, helped the
master create the present bronzes.
Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1740)
Soldani has been called the last great Florentine artist in bronze, in a tradition
stretching from Lorenzo Ghiberti through Giambologna and Pietro and
Ferdinando Tacca. He initially studied at the drawing school of the GrandDucal Galleria in Florence. When Grand Duke Cosimo III de’Medici (16421723) saw examples of his work there, he decided to train up the young artist
to work at the Zecca (mint), and in 1678 sent him to the Academy he had
founded in Rome. On Soldani’s return to Florence, after a short spell in Paris
in 1682, working under the medallist Joseph Roettiers (1635-1703), he
entered the mint, where he was to remain for over forty years, having been
appointed Maestro dei Coni e Custode della Zecca in 1688. Not only did he
create outstanding coins and medals, he was also active as a goldsmith and
sculptor. As well as casting original works in bronze, notably allegorical and
erotic subjects, he was also a master of making bronze versions of antique
sculptures, such as the two present examples. As noted above, the pair here
formed part of a group of four bronzes after the antique, which the artist cast
for the 1st Duke of Marlborough in 1711.
The Provenance
As mentioned above, the bronzes were made for John Churchill, 1st Duke of
Marlborough (1650-1722), and were displayed at Blenheim Palace,
Oxfordshire, along with the other two bronzes after the antique at the same
time by Soldani for the Duke: the Medici Venus and the Dancing Faun. They
have remained in the family ever since, although their exact locations at
Blenheim have changed over the centuries. All four were originally displayed
in the Marble Hall at Blenheim. But by 1803 the Knife Grinder was noted as
being ‘in the garden towards the High Lodge’, while the group of the Wrestlers
was said to be also out in the grounds, ‘very close to the temple of Diana’ at
that date. By 1814 they were back in the Marble Hall, and seem to have
stayed there until 1904, although in 1909 they had been moved out into the
garden once more. The present pair of bronzes was subsequently believed to
have been lost, but they were re-discovered in 1972 in the Private Garden at
Blenheim, oxidised, but otherwise in good condition. Their surfaces have been
recently restored and re-patinated.
The first mention of the commission for the four Blenheim bronzes is in a letter
of 1 July 1709 from Christopher Crowe (1682-1749), the merchant and British
Consul at Leghorn, to Lord Sunderland, the Duke of Marlborough’s son-in-law.
Crowe wrote, ‘I was desired to send to Your Lordship the inclosed
memorandum given to me by one Sigr. Maximiliano Soldani of Florence a
very ingenious workman & who offers as your Lordship will observe to make
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in brass some of the most famous Statues that are in the Great Dukes
Gallery … He’s … a Person of Great integrity, as Mr. Newton the Envoy [Sir
Henry Newton, the British envoy in Florence (1651-1715)] can also informe
Your Lordship, and in the service of the great Prince, … but they’ll be some
tyme making and he desires the Copper before hand to make use of.’ This
letter implies that unusually it was the artist himself who made an approach to
the Duke of Marlborough, offering to cast the bronzes for him. In fact Soldani
apparently offered to make six bronze casts for the Duke, the four noted here,
and two more of figures of Venus. If the statues of Venus were indeed made,
their whereabouts are today unknown.
A subsequent letter of 28 April 1710 to the Duke from John Vanbrugh (16641726), the architect of Blenheim, records that Sir Henry Newton gave the
commission to Soldani that year. Vanbrugh noted the financial arrangements:
‘… one third shall be paid down (because of buying the metal) one third when
the work is half done, and the rest when the figures are delivered.’ Newton
had obtained permission from Duke Cosimo III de’Medici to have the casts
made. Soldani was permitted by the Medici Duke to use the moulds recently
produced for casting plaster copies for Johann Wilhelm, the Elector Palatine
(1658-1716), presumably those made by the grand-ducal sculptor, Giovanni
Battista Foggini (1652-1725). However Soldani had already produced life-size
bronze versions of the Medici Venus and the Dancing Faun for Johann Adam
Andreas von Liechtenstein (1662-1712), and so could have used the moulds
for those two figures for Blenheim from the earlier commission, perhaps using
Foggini’s moulds only for the Wrestlers and Knife Grinder.
The re-use of moulds meant that the work was relatively speedy, but
nevertheless the cost of all four bronzes made for Blenheim was significantly
high: almost £1,000. The Marlborough papers in the British Library note that
the Knife Grinder, described as ‘the Peasant, or Knife-grinder, who discovered
the Conspiracy of Catiline, placed on its base’, cost ‘225 Spanish doubloons’,
while ‘the two Gladiators, or Wrestlers, completely nude grouped together, on
the ground on which they rest’ cost ‘450 Spanish doubloons’. A doubloon was
roughly equal to one pound sterling. On 8 September 1711 official permission
for the export of the four bronzes to the Duke of Marlborough was granted to
Newton, implying that they would have arrived in Blenheim a few weeks or
months after that date.
The bronzes and the second of the Waverley criteria: Is the object of
outstanding aesthetic importance?
These are exceptionally fine monumental bronzes, based on, but adapting,
their classical sources. Soldani fused his finesse as a medallist with the
imposing character of Roman high baroque. The precision of modelling, and
the chiselling of the hands and facial features, are characteristic of the artist’s
style. The lively quality of casting also attests to the prowess with which
Soldani ran his workshop. As has been noted, his copies after the antique are
in fact fresh creations, a transmutation of the techniques and effects of marble
carving into those of bronze-casting. In translating marble into bronze the
artist effectively created new works of art.
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The bronzes and the third of the Waverley criteria: Is the object of outstanding
significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history?
Soldani was one of the most admired sculptors of his day, and his works were
particularly prized by British collectors and connoisseurs. These bronzes are
especially interesting pieces, in that they are fully documented and have an
unbroken provenance. This means that the artist’s techniques can be studied
and understood within the context of his other works. The links with the
Churchill family and Blenheim mean that these sculptures have a specific
historical resonance.
Bibliography
C. Avery, ‘The Duke of Marlborough as a Collector and Patron of Sculpture’ in
E. Chaney (ed.), The Evolution of English Collecting. Receptions of Italian Art
in the Tudor and Stuart Periods, New Haven, 2003, pp. 427-64
British Library Blenheim papers BL, 61523.f.251
Christie’s London, auction catalogue entry for bronze group of The Wrestlers,
1 December 2005, lot 57
A. Ciechanowiecki and G. Seagrim, ‘Soldani’s Blenheim Commission and
other Bronze Sculptures after the Antique’ in W. Hartmann (ed.), Festschrift
Klaus Lankheit zum 20. Mai 1973, Cologne, 1973, pp. 180-4
F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical
Sculpture, New Haven, 1981, pp. 154-7 and pp. 337-9
H. Keutner, K. Lankheit et al., Kunst des Barock in der Toscana. Studien zur
Kunst unter den letzten Medici, Munich, 1976, especially pp. 137-72 (essays
by H. Keutner and C. Avery)
K. Lankheit, Florentinische Barockplastik. Die Kunst am Hofe der Letzten
Medici 1670-1743, Munich, 1962, especially pp. 110-160
K. Lankheit/J. Montagu, catalogue entries on Soldani in The Twilight of the
Medici. Late Baroque Art in Florence, 1670-1743 (exh. cat.), The Detroit
Institute of Arts and the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1974, pp. 102-43
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