Lion Attacking a Horse
Giovanni Francesco Susini (1585–1653)
after
Giambologna (1529–1608)
c. 1630/40
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The pair of bronzes ‘Lion Attacking a Horse’ (SK 547) and ‘Leopard Killing a Bull’ (SK 544) are uncontroversially credited to Giovanni Francesco Susini, not least on account of the design of their bases and their casting technique. However, they ultimately depend upon the passionate interest in animal sculpture possessed by Giambologna, who was responsible for a pair of groups of a lion attacking a horse – as here – and a lion attacking a bull. They are known in various versions, some signed by Antonio Susini, and were certainly in existence by 1611, when examples were listed in the collection of Markus Zeh. The ‘Lion Attacking a Horse’ was based upon a fragmentary classical marble group (now in the garden of the Palazzo dei Conservatori) that Giambologna must have known from his years in Rome in the 1550s. The present completion of the original dates from its restoration by the Milanese sculptor Ruggiero Bescapé in 1594 and shows the head of the horse slumped forward in slightly dull surrender; it could hardly be more different from Giambologna’s explosive, almost melodramatic solution. There also exist bronzes from Giambologna’s circle which reproduce this tamer composition.
As noted above, the ‘Lion Attacking a Horse’ is customarily accompanied by a ‘Lion and Bull’, also – albeit much more loosely – based upon classical prototypes. By contrast, the pendant here, which shows the bull being attacked by a leopard clearly recognizable as such by virtue of its spotted coat, is incomparably rarer. In addition to the change of animal, it also represents a less dramatic and savage encounter, which has led some commentators to speculate that it may have been devised as a counterpart to the Bescapé-inspired ‘Lion and Horse’. Be that as it may, no such early pair of bronzes is known, whereas the present combination was demonstrably in existence by 1658, when these pieces are listed together in the Liechtenstein Princely Collections. Moreover, Filippo Baldinucci, writing in the 1680s, referred to Giambologna’s having made models for bronzes of a horse killed by a lion and a bull killed by a tiger, and may have had precisely the present pairing in mind.
- Material/technique
- bronze with original lacquer patina
- Measurements
- 23.8 × 31.0 × 23.8 cm
- Acquisition
- presumably acquired in 1658 by Prince Karl Eusebius I von Liechtenstein
- Artists/makers/authors
- Giovanni Francesco Susini
- after Giambologna
- Inventory number
- SK 547
- Provenance
- first mentioned in the Guardaroba inventory of Prince Karl Eusebius I von Liechtenstein, dated 1658, presumably acquired in 1658 by Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein
- Place of origin
- Florence
- Iconography
- Battle scene , Lion , Horse
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