Young man's head in carved Istrian stone. Expressive face with large almond-shaped eyes and lacrimal caruncle, cheeks carved with dimples, nasolabial folds, mouth drawing a smile with thin, slightly half-open lips showing the dentition; short hair with disordered wavy strands falling on the forehead and temples; neck surrounded by a loose neck with foliage rinceau at the base.
Italy, Verona or Venice, attributed to Nanni di Bartolo (active 1419-1451), around 1430
Height: 35.5 cm
Rotating base in black metal (traces of tearing on the sides, small shoulder on the nose)
This interesting young man's head could be part of the limited corpus of works identified as being by the sculptor from Florence, Nanni di Bartolo, called il Rosso, active between 1419 and 1451. His life is poorly documented: he made his career in Florence and is said to have collaborated with Donatello around 1421 before working in Venice and Verona. In 2008, Professor
Gert Kreytenberg published an essay in which he attributed this sculpture to him by comparing it with the works made by Nanni di Bartolo in 1426 in the church of San Fermo in Verona, thus allowing it to be dated between 1423 and 1437. It is indeed striking to see the similarities with the facial features and hair of a sleeping soldier from Niccolò Brenzoni's tomb (fig. a), especially the slightly ajar mouth and the same arrangement of the wicks. Wolters also makes a comparison with a human gargoyle on the north façade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice (fig. b), whose features have the same expressive force.
Bibliography: G. Kreytenberg, "Der KopfeineslächelndenJünglings von Nanni di Bartolo il
Rosso" in Studi di Storia dell'Arte, vol. 19,2008, pp. 273-276.
Book consulted: W. Wolters, La scultura veneziana gotica 1300-1461, Venice, 1976, pp.
273-276, ill. 753, 635, 636, 755, 756, 647, 648.
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