Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 90-91.(Budapest, 1999)

VARGA, LÍVIA: The Reconsideration of the Portrait Reliefs of King Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490), and Queen Beatrix of Aragon (1476-1508)

39. Detail of the Matthias relief sented on die Budapest work.

56 Portrait reliefs are otherwise missing from Dalmata's known oeuvre. There is a considerable difference in size between the Matthias relief and Giovanni Dalmata's two signed sculptures of Saint John and Hope. Nevertheless, the resemblance in the profiles and a number of telling details are undeniable. The Saint John statue is connected to the relief of the king by the similar treatment of hair on the top of the head, by the extensively used drill (fig. 39), by the shape of the chin, and by the pearl motif appearing on the shirt and around the neck. The shallow modeling of the faces of the royal couple is repeated on the Saint John statue as well as on the figure of Hope, along with the very similarly carved eyebrows. Finally, the richly decorated niche and arch around the head of the figure of Hope are composed of individual motifs which are closely related to those appearing on the necklaces of Matthias and Beatrix. The reliefs decorating the afore-mentioned monument of Pope Paul II are the joint works of Mino da Fiesole and Giovanni Dalmata. Besides the figure of Hope, several other reliefs are attributed to Dalmata. One of these is the Resurrection scene, which originally was placed above the papal sarcophagus.

57 In this scene Christ's figure is surrounded by two adoring angels, whose profiles also resemble that of Matthias (fig. 40). Several small details are even more significant: on two sides of the Resurrection relief oak trees are represented as parts of the landscape (fig. 41). Not only are the shapes of the oak leaves similar to those which made up the wreath around the head of Matthias, but the plasticity of the acorns and even their rough empty shells are represented in the same way on both works (fig. 42). The same fonnál language characterizes a frieze in the collection of the Louvre (Paris), which originally also belonged to Pope Paul II's monument and is unanimously accepted as Giovanni Dalmata's own work. Among the fruit and floral motives constituting the garland, acorn and empty acorn shells are represented in the same way as on the relief of King Matthias (fig. 43). Similar motives appear on two large, red marble architectural elements, fragments of 56 Prijatelj. op. cit. (n. 47) fig. 61. 57 According to J. Pope-Hennessy (Italian Renaissance Sculpture. London, 1963) and to Seymour (op. cit. n. 47, pp. 156-60), the following reliefs were made by Dalmata: God the Father in Glory, a supporting angel on the left side of the Last Judgment, the Resurrection, the effigy and sarcophagus, two evangelists in niches, the Creation of Eve, and half of a frieze now in the Louvre.