Existing comment:
Mantegna and Bronze
Court painter to the princely Gonzaga family that ruled Mantua in northern Italy, the Paduan Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431 – 1506) was one of the most innovative artists of his generation. As a result of his shrewd decision, around 1470, to publish his designs through the new medium of engraving, Mantegna's erudite compositions, closely modeled on ancient sculptures and archaeological remains, strongly influenced other artists in northern Italy, especially sculptors working with bronze.
Sculptors sometimes copied Mantegna's compositions in their entirety, as seen in the plaquette by Andrea Briosco (Padua, 1470 – 1532) depicting the Old Testament heroine Judith who saved her people from destruction by decapitating their enemy, the Assyrian general Holofernes. In contrast, the artist Moderno (Verona, 1467 – 1528) consulted Mantegna's Entombment with Three Birds only for the background and the four female figures that appear in the foreground of the engraving and embrace Christ in the plaquette. |