Italian Grand Tour Marble Relief Tondo after Gasparo Cairano

Italian Grand Tour Marble Relief Tondo after Gasparo Cairano

Italy, mid-19th century

Carrara statuario marble · Diameter 21 cm (8¼ in)

This finely carved marble tondo is a Grand Tour reduction after Gasparo Cairano’s celebrated Renaissance battle relief on the façade of the Palazzo della Loggia in Brescia, executed around 1495.

In high relief, a nude warrior on a rearing horse twists sharply in contrapposto as he raises a club to strike, his short cloak and hair streaming behind him. Beneath the horse’s forelegs a fallen adversary lies crushed, his small shield adorned with a mask; at the right a second soldier advances with spear and oval shield, its boss carved as a gorgoneion. The compressed bodies, tense musculature and agitated drapery closely follow Cairano’s original composition, distilling one of the key images of Lombard Renaissance sculpture into an intimate, wall-hung roundel.

The tondo is worked in luminous Carrara statuario marble, with crisp undercutting and a sensitively polished surface that catches the light beautifully. The reverse is neatly incised with the monogram “C.A.”, very likely recording the sculptor or atelier. The quality of the carving, the scholarly source and the choice of fine statuario place the piece firmly within the Roman Grand Tour tradition fostered by workshops such as those of Cavaceppi and Carlo and Filippo Albacini, even if a more precise attribution remains to be established.

A serious yet highly decorative object, it bridges antique prototype, Quattrocento invention and 19th-century connoisseurship.

Condition

Excellent condition for its age. Minor surface marks and small edge knocks consistent with handling. Original drilled hanging hole to the reverse. The relief remains remarkably fresh, with an attractive, gently aged patina and its early polished finish intact.

Literature

For the original full-scale battle relief and its relationship to the Loggia friezes, see V. Zani, Gasparo Cairano e la scultura monumentale del Rinascimento a Brescia (1489–1517 ca.), Roccafranca, 2010; and V. Zani, “Una copia del Sacrificio del Mausoleo Martinengo e alcune note iconografiche e stilistiche”, Antiqua nuova serie, 2013 (figs. 10 & 14).