Italian, Florence, 16th/17th century

This dramatic bust was published by Professor Sandro Bellesi in 1997. Bellesi associates the bust with the fascination for the occult and magic in Florentine Baroque art (see also lot 110, the painting of A scene of Witchcraft by Pietro Dandini). He identifies Francesco I de’ Medici’s interest in alchemy as a stimulus to the creation of paintings with gruesome, diabolic subject matter. In sculpture, this manifests itself in images of grotesque saytrs and allegories of avarice and vice.

The present bust of a hag resonates with a world of witches and demons. Her toothless grin and piercing stare engage the viewer, whilst her wrinkled, sagging bare right breast and drapery falling over her left shoulder transform a classical formula for the representation of a goddess, such as Venus, into a gruesome spectacle.

Bellesi proposes that the expressive head of the old woman is an ancient Roman fragment that has been incorporated into a later, 16th-century torso. Clearly, there is a join at the base of the woman’s neck that suggests the head and torso are a ‘marriage’, but the head has been so consistently cleaned and re-worked that its ancient origin is not certain. There is no doubt, however, that the iconography of the old woman is dependent on antique prototypes. A prime example is the full-length marble statue of An Old Woman in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Inv. 09.39). The subject of this figure has been identified as part of Dionysian narrative. The woman strides forward, dressed in a rich costume, holding a basket of fruit, vegetables and birds as if setting out for a Dionysian festival. Her haggard face, wrinkled neck and withered breast compare closely with our bust.

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