Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 100. (Budapest, 2004)

URBACH, ZSUZSA: Ein flämischer ikonographischer Bildtypus im italienischen Quattrocento. Bemerkungen zur Studie von Éva Eszláry

Damiano Cappelli, whose signature is preserved on the Paris series, is perhaps even lesser known than Francesco Fanelli. Damiano Cappelli, the son of the bronze founder Cosimo Cappelli (active after 1600), spent his years of apprenticeship in the workshop of Ferdinando Tacca, and later worked there as a principal assistant as well.

32 Although in 1662 he opened his own workshop, in 1688 he was again in the service of the Florentine Grand Duke, most probably working in the Borgo Pinti workshop.

33 Apart from his four bronze statuettes in Paris, only one of his signed works is known, the bronze pair of Tarquinius and Lucretia in the Abbot Guggenheim Collection in New York.

34 Damiano Cappelli made his reputation as a talented bronze founder principally casting copies of bronze statuettes; his contemporary, Filippo Baldinucci (1625-1697), and a bit later Niccolô Gabburi (1676-1742), also reported that he worked after compositions by Giambologna, Pietro Tacca, Giovan Francesco Susini and others.

35 Because only one of his signed works has remained apart from the Paris bronze statuettes, Radcliffe assumes that he started to sign his works only after the death of his former master, Ferdinando Tacca.

36 The small number of signed works can be explained by the fact that he outlived his master by only two and a half years.

37 The author of the Budapest bronze statuettes, thus, must be sought in the circle of the Paris series signed by Damiano Cappelli. In Florence in 1590, Grand Duke Ferdinand I allowed Giambologna to set up a workshop next to his house, in Borgo Pinti. Several sculptors worked here under the master s guidance. After Giambolona's death, his workshop was inherited by Pietro Tacca, and later by his son, Ferdinando Tacca. Ferdinando Tacca also owned a large workshop in the Borgo Pinti, where several outstanding sculptors and bronze founders appeared, among them Damiano Cappelli. For a long time, countless copies were cast after the popular bronze statuettes of the Borgo Pinti workshop without raising the question of authenticity or authorship in the sense it is raised today. A signature could likewise refer to the master of the prototype or of the replica. A similar situation could have happened in the case of the hunting scenes of Budapest.

38 The Budapest statues are likely to 32 On Damiano Cappelli, see Bellesi, op. cit. (n. 28), 41; Radcliffe, op. cit. (n. 16), 104-6. 33 Ibid. 34 L. Camins, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Abbott Guggenheim Collection, San Francisco 1988, cat. 35. 33 Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie dei Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qua, vol. 4, ed. F. Ranalli, Florence 1846, 106-7; Lankheit, op. cit. (n. 3), 224. 36 Radcliffe, op. cit. (n. 16), 108. 37 Ferdinando Tacca died 27 February 1686, while Damiano Cappelli died in the summer of 1688. Cf. ibid., 106. 38 There are other known versions of the bronze statuettes of four hunting scenes, beyond those in Budapest, Paris and the USA: Horseman Killinga Bull, Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection (Cat. Florence [n. 3], cat. 4.39; Radcliffe, op. cit. [n. 16], 108), Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale (ibid., 109, n. 22); Turkish Horseman in Combat with a Lion, Rome, Museo di Palazzo Venezia (ibid., 109, n. 20); Rearing Horse, Bologna, Museo Civico (Avery and Radcliffe, op.cit [n. 18], cat. 167; Cat. Florence [n. 3], cat. 4.40).