Netherlandish, early 17th century

With David Peel, London, 1965;

Professor Michael Jaffé CBE (1923-1997), Cambridge, United Kingdom;

Thence by descent to the present owners;

On loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 2025.

From Riccio to Clodion: An Exhibition of European Works of Art, David Peel & Co. Ltd., London, 1965, no. 7

Another cast of this charming model representing Charity is housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. A.46-1931). According to the Museum's notes, the composition bears a resemblance to Tiziano Aspetti's version of the same subject in the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua (see Planiscig, op. cit., p. 573, fig. 630), but the V&A bronze was thought by Leo Planiscig to be either Franco-Flemish or Sienese, circa 1600. While clearly influenced by Italian, and more specifically Venetian, sculpture from this period, the thick-walled cast, brassy colour, and facial styles point towards a northern origin, most likely in the Netherlands. The crying putto recalls similar subjects by Hendrick de Keyser and his circle (see, for example, the bronze Screaming Child in the Los Angeles County Museum, inv. no. M.84.37). The general composition finds a further parallel in a walnut Charity at the Rijskmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. Am.35), catalogued by Leeuwenberg (op. cit.) as Amsterdam, mid-17th century.

RELATED LITERATURE

L. Planiscig, Venezianische Bildhauer der Renaissance, Vienna, 1921; J. Leeuwenberg and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, cat. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Hague/ Amsterdam, 1973, p. 197, no. 255; F. Scholten, 'Hendrick de Keyser's Honey Thief', in The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, vol. 63, no. 1, 2015, pp. 52-65