Battle of the Nudes

the Pollaiuolo workshop, based
on the slightly faceted articula-
tion of the anatomy, notably the
V-shape of the sternocleidomas-
toid muscles near the neck, al-
though the large hands with large
and distinct knuckles and highly
articulated feet appear somewhat
closer to Verrochio's style. How-
ever, these Renaissance copies
after antique examples are notori-
ously difficult to attribute with
certainty to specific artists be-
cause of the complexity in dis-
cerning the Renaissance artist's
individual stylistic approaches
from elements belonging to the
original antique sculpture. John
Pope-Hennessy considers the
bronze Marsyas in the Frick
Collection to be in the style of
Pollaiuolo (The Study and Criticism
of Italian Sculpture [Princeton,
1980], 129-32). The less finished
surface of the Modena example,
as compared with the Frick
bronze, is more in keeping with
the Florentine practice of leaving
bronze statuettes relatively in the
rough (since they would have
been shown alongside excavated
examples), and typical of
Pollaiuolo's other known works
such as the Hercules, also in the
Frick Collection, and the Hercules
and Antaeus in the Museo
Nazionale del Bargello. For a
description of the antique source,
see Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth
Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and
Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of
Sources (London, 1986), 73-74, no.
30.
22. For a discussion of a group of
Marsyas bronzes affiliated with
the Medici collections, see Anna
Maria Massinelli, Bronzetti e
Anticaglie dalla Guardaroba di
Cosimo I, exh. cat., Museo
Nazionale del Bargello (Florence,
1991), 31-39.
23. For instance, the use of the
lion skin as a supporting strut for
the Hercules figure is unneces-
sary given the tensile strength of
the bronze, but it may have been
an intended allusion to the use of
such struts to support marble
Roman copies of Greek bronze
statuary. For further discussion of
possible antique sources and
motives that influenced
Pollaiuolo's Hercules and Antaeus
sculpture, see Edward J.
Olszewski, "Framing the Moral
Lesson in Pollaiuolo's Hercules
and Antaeus," in Luba Freedman
and Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich,
58
eds., Wege zum Mythos (Berlin,
2001), 71-87; and Massinelli,
Bronzetti e Anticaglie, 26-30.
24. See Joy Kenseth, "The Virtue
of Littleness: Small-Scale Sculp-
tures of the Italian Renaissance,"
in Sarah Blake McHam, ed., Look-
ing at Italian Renaissance Sculpture
(Cambridge, 1998), 128-48.
25. Alison Wright, "Dimensional
Tension in the Work of Antonio
Pollaiuolo," in Stuart Currie and
Peta Motture, eds., The Sculpted
Object 1400-1700 (Aldershot,
U.K., 1997), 65-86. For further
discussion of Pollaiuolo's incor-
poration of two- and three-
dimensional formal concerns and
use of antique sources, see Laurie
Fusco, "Antonio Pollaiuolo's Use
of the Antique," Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
42 (1979): 257-63.
26. Before entering the Uffizi
collection in 1788, the Rape of the
Daughters of Leucippus (fig. 17)
was housed in the Medici villa in
Rome. It was acquired by the
Medici family in 1584 when
Ferdinand de' Medici bought
most of the antique sculptures
from the della Valle collection. It
is not known when this sarcopha-
gus entered the collection of Car-
dinal Andrea della Valle (1463-
1534), which was well established
in the quattrocento by the della
Valle family of learned jurists,
physicians, and classical scholars
and developed by the cardinal
into one of the most important
collections of the 16th century. A
variant example, also known in
the Renaissance, is now in the
Vatican collection. See Bober and
Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and
Antique Sculpture, 161-62, 479-80,
nos. 126 and 126a.
27. Lorenzo Ghiberti, I Commen-
tarii, ed. Julius von Schlosser
(Berlin 1912), 1: 22; Pliny, Natural
History, 35.67-72.
28. It should be noted that both
the Fogg and British Museum
drawings have suffered damage
over the years. Some of the lim-
ited interior modeling lines (de-
scribing ribs and muscles in the
areas of the stomach and neck)
have faded and thus are difficult
to see in an illustration; the dis-
coloration and restoration of the
surface of the drawings make it
impossible to ascertain if any pale
wash was applied, as is often
found in Pollaiuolo's drawings
this type. The execution of the
two drawings with their unusu
solid dark backgrounds have
been compared to the dancing
nude figures of Pollaiuolo's Vi
Gallina frescoes at Arcetri, wh
in turn have been discussed in
relation to painted imagery on
ancient Greek vases that were
being rediscovered as collector
items in Italy in the 1460s. In
attempts to link the elusive sub
ject matter of the British Muse
drawing and the Fogg fragmen
(and the so-called Hercules an
Giants engraving to which it re
lates) with the Battle of the Nu
engraving, Cruttwell, Popham
and Pouncey, and others have
suggested that all these works
may have been conceived as
preparatory to some decorative
scheme that did not necessarily
have a complicated iconograph
beyond staging inventive displ
of the nude figure in action, w
generalized references to class
sources. See Maud Cruttwell,
Antonio Pollaiuolo (London, 1
124; A. E. Popham and Philip
Pouncey, Italian Drawings in
Department of Prints and Dra
at the British Museum: The Fo
teenth and Fifteenth Centuries
don, 1950), 136-38, no. 224; F
Shapley, "A Student of Ancien
Ceramics, Antonio Pollajuolo,
Art Bulletin 2 (1919), 78-86; A
H. Barr, "A Drawing by Anton
Pollaiuolo," in Art Studies: Me
eval Renaissance and Modern
bridge, 1926), 73-78; Michael
Vickers, "A Greek Source for
Antonio Pollaiuolo's Battle of
Nudes and Hercules and the Tw
Giants," Art Bulletin 59 (1977
182-87; Ettlinger, Antonio and
Piero Pollaiuolo, 161, nos. 35
and Ann Driscoll, "The Pig
Painter: Parties, Poets, and
Pollaiuolo," CMA Bulletin 80 (1
83-111. Alison Wright (Rubin
Wright, Renaissance Florence
has also noted the affinity of th
Fogg and British Museum draw
ings with the small-scale relief
silhouetted against dark groun
found in the ancient cameos th
were avidly collected by
Pollaiuolo's patrons, the Medic
in the 1470s.
29. For a discussion of
Finiguerra's stylistic relationsh
to Pollaiuolo, and their possibl
collaboration in the same gold
smith shop in the early years o
Pollaiuolo's career, see Alison
Wright, "Studies in the Paintin