Sculpture

Subject: Head of a Man (Saint John the Baptist ?)

Author: workshop of Mosca Giammaria called Padovano, 1495-1499/ 1573 (sculptor)

Date: first half of the 16th century A.D.

Description

Head of a bearded man who could be Saint John the Baptist; maybe it has been used in workshop as a model. At first scholars attributed this work to Segala. However recently the same head has been recognized in a drawing of Two Heads by Domenico Campagnola, now in Chatsworth (UK) so L. Attardi dated the piece at the first half of the 16th century A.D. She also observed a relation with some works by Gianmaria Mosca. Particularly, this head looks like that from the stout of Saint Stephen’s Church in Venice (1524-1526).

Materials and techniques: stucco/ mouldmade

Dimensions: height 11.5 cm, lenght 9 cm

Provenance: Mantova Benavides Collection, Padua; Vallisneri Collection, Padua

University of Padua, Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art

Cat. Number: MB10

Bibliography

• Semenzato Camillo, Alcune opere della Raccolta Benavides al Liviano, in Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova, XLV (1956), pp. 89-104 : 102, n. XII.
• Attardi Luisa, 103.Testa virile con barba (San Giovanni Battista?), in Un Museo di Antichità nella Padova del Cinquecento. La raccolta di Marco Mantova Benavides all'Università di Padova, a cura di Irene Favaretto, Alessandra Menegazzi, Roma, Giorgio Bretschneider, 2013, p.128.