Cassone Panel with Neptune Presiding over a Wedding
Culture Group
Florentine
Artist
Artist Unknown
Datec. 1560
MediumCarved walnut with gilding
Dimensions21 3/4 x 67 3/4 inches (55.2 x 172.1 cm)
Classifications(not assigned)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2000.2.1
Collections
- EUROPEAN
- PROVENANCE RESEARCH
Label TextThis wedding chest (cassone) panel uses both high and low relief to give the illusion of spatial recession in a scene depicting the god Neptune and other mythological figures cavorting on the ocean waves at a sea-wedding. The central figure of Neptune projects into the viewer's space, being carved almost completely in the round. His voluminous form with its powerful musculature is strongly reminiscent of French and Italian sculptures of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, such as Giambologna of Florence. The sculptor of the Nasher's cassone panel seems to have closely studied the carving of classical sarcophagi, in which similar depictions of mythological subjects and deep carving of forms can be found. The Nasher's cassone panel was probably made in preparation for the wedding of a member of an elite Italian family, whose yet-unidentified coat-of-arms is depicted on the right corner.
ProvenancePurchased July 7, 1999 through (Sotheby's London, lot 68) by (Blumka Gallery, New York); purchased February 22, 2000 by Duke University Museum of Art, now Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.