Dawn, from the New Sacristy tombs
after Michelangelo Buonarroti ( Caprese Michelangelo 1475 - Rome 1564)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1820 - 1840
Materials
Bronze on green serpentine (verde di prato)
Measurements
465 mm (H); 645 mm (W); 260 mm (D)
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset
NT 1255242.1
Summary
Sculpture, bronze; Dawn; after Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), French, Paris; c. 1820-40. A bronze reduction of Dawn, one of four figures at Kingston Lacy depicting the celebrated allegorical representations of the Times of Day that adorn the tombs of two Medici princes, Giuliano de’Medici, Duke of Nemours (1479-1516) and Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519), in the New Sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Abandoned half-completed when Michelangelo left Florence for Rome in 1534, the Times of the Day have always been regarded as among Michelangelo’s most powerful and mysterious works, their fame beginning to grow especially strongly in the nineteenth century. The set of four bronze reductions at Kingston Lacy was probably cast in Paris, but they were bought by William Bankes at a sale in London in 1840.
Full description
A bronze reclining figure of a woman representing Dawn, naked except for a band across her stomach below her breasts, and a headdress scrolled at the front. Over this is, partly tucked-in, the end of a long drapery, much of which Dawn reclinesupon, but part of which runs over her back, whist she grasps one edge of the drapery with the fingers of her raised left hand. Propped up on her right arm, she turns her body to her right, her left leg raised. The bronze is mounted on a green marble (verde di Prato?) base consisting of a flat rectangular section, out of which rises a curving section, onto which the bronze is fixed and which broadly echoes the scroll upon which Michelangelo’s marble figure reclines on the tomb of Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519). A companion to three other bronze reductions of the Times of the Day, Dusk (NT 1255242.2), Night (NT 1255242.3) and Day (NT 1255242.4). The four figures are displayed at Kingston Lacy on the balustrade of the Upper Marble Staircase. Michelangelo’s sculptures for the Medici Chapel in the New Sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence have, ever since they were made, been counted as among the most celebrated statues from the Italian Renaissance. The architectural space of the New Sacristy was built to complement Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy on the other side of the church. It was originally planned to contain four tombs for members of the Medici family. Michelangelo began work on the project in the 1520s but, by the time of his departure for Rome in 1534, had completed only a small proportion of the original grand conception, notably the figures of Giuliano de’Medici, Duke of Nemours (1479-1516) and Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519). Among the uncompleted sculptures left on the floor of the Chapel were four reclining figures representing in allegorical form the times of day, Night and Day, Dawn and Dusk. These figures were finally installed in 1545 by Niccolò Tribolo, mounted as pairs upon the sarcophagi of Giuliano and Lorenzo respectively. Despite their unfinished state, these sculptures have ever since been regarded as among Michelangelo’s most powerful and mysterious works. From the time of their installation on the tombs of the Medici dukes, the sculptures of the Medici Chapel were celebrated, especially among artists, for whom the Chapel would become a mecca. A set of four elegant small copies in alabaster, in the Staatliche Kunstsamlungen in Dresden, have been recently attributed to the Italo-Flemish sculptor Giovanni Bologna (Giambologna, 1529-1608), who revered Michelangelo (Dresden 2018, esp. pp. 16-37), whilst other early copies were made by another Netherlandish artist working in Italy, Gregor van der Schardt (1530-c. 1581; Dresden 2018, no. 35). A few copies in bronze that can be dated to before the eighteenth century are known, notably a set of all four Times of the Day in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Paris 1999, nos. 248-51), formerly in the French royal collections. These came from the collection of Louis Hesselin (1602-62), so can be firmly dated to the first half of the seventeenth century or earlier. However, after this early interest, the Times of the Day appear to have been little reproduced in the eighteenth century, except as bronze furnishing mounts for clocks towards the latter end of the century (an example from around 1775 is in the Wallace Collection, Inv. F268). In fact, it seems only to be from the nineteenth century that reproductions in bronze began to be made in any numbers. The four bronzes at Kingston Lacy were almost certainly made during the early decades of the nineteenth century and in a foundry in Paris, perhaps the highly successful manufactory operated by Pierre-François Feuchère (1737-1832). His foundry certainly produced reproductions of Michelangelo’s figures, since one of Feuchère’s auction sales (29 November 1824, lot 12) included ‘Day and Night, after the figures from the tomb of the Medici in Florence’ [‘le jour et la nuit, d'apres les figures du tombeau des Médicis a Florence, socles en bois sculpté.']. The four bronzes at Kingston Lacy were part of a collection of bronzes sold at Christie’s in London in 1840, described as 'a superb assemblage' of bronzes, the catalogue noting that the collection had been consigned to London for sale two years before and had been exhibited for private sale in Bond Street before arriving in the sale room. It is clear from the descriptions in the catalogue that the bronzes in this collection had come from Paris and were essentially modern productions. The four Times of the Day are approximately the same size as the reductions from the French royal collections in the Louvre, so it is possible that those bronzes provided the models for Feuchère and no doubt other nineteenth-century Parisian founders, seeking to exploit the growing interest in a wider range of Michelangelo's works. The modern reproductions are less carefully finished than the set of bronzes in the Louvre. Jeremy Warren May 2023
Provenance
Christie’s, London, Bronzes, 8 April 1840, lot 57, with the ‘Dusk, bought by William John Bankes for 33 guineas (£34 13s.); by descent to Ralph Bankes (1902-1981); bequeathed in 1981.
Makers and roles
after Michelangelo Buonarroti ( Caprese Michelangelo 1475 - Rome 1564) , sculptor Italian (Florentine) School, sculptor after Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese Michelangelo 1475 - Rome 1564), original artist
References
Paris 1999: Les Bronzes de la Couronne, exh.cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris 1999 Dresden 2018: Stephan Koja and Claudia Kryza-Gersch, eds., Shadows of Time: Giambologna, Michelangelo and the Medici Chapel, exh. cat., Skupturensammlung, Dresden 2018.