Oil Lamp with Silenus

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Bronze sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 16

Inventory

PV 09241

Material and technique

Bronze, natural reddish patina, traces of light black lacquer

Author

Severo da Ravenna (studio)

Dating

16th century

Dimensions

7.4 x 4.3 x 14.2 cm.

Origin

Barsanti Collection (1934)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

This lively and detailed work is of good quality. The eyes, hair and beard of Silenus, along with the eyes and ears of the donkey, have been carefully chiselled. For a long time some versions of this type of oil lamp were mistakenly thought to be archaeological finds, and were included in classical collections. Planiscig attributed the Palazzo Venezia bronzes, and other similar examples, to Riccio, classifying them in four different groups. Though Planiscig had included these four types in his monograph on Riccio in 1927, they were, like many other works of Riccio in the Palazzo Venezia collection, later re-attributed to Severo da Ravenna and his prolific studio.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Pollak, Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti (Trecento-Settecento), Bergamo 1922, no. 14 p. 29; L. Planiscig, Andrea Riccio, Vienna 1927, pp. 178 and 488; A. Santangelo, Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, p. 31; C. Avery, Giambologna: an exhibition of sculpture by the master and his followers; from the collection of Michael Hall, New York 1998, no. 146, pp. 225-226.