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Drawing 6 (right half, centre): Elaborate helmet surmounted by a satyr
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Reference number
SM volume 115/161f
Purpose
Drawing 6 (right half, centre): Elaborate helmet surmounted by a satyr
Aspect
View of side
Scale
Not known
Signed and dated
- c.1515
Datable to c.1515
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
This ceremonial burgonet, a type that had emerged by the turn of the sixteenth century, has a peak in the form of a boar’s head with an elongated snout, tusks, and hair that is transformed into foliate decoration at the base of the skull. The cheek guard carries the motto SPQR in a tabula ansata and rises to a disk bearing crossed shields that covers the ear. The flange at the back is adorned with a triton-like figure, while the skull has two nude warriors, one on a horse that rears above the victim cowering below. The prominent crest consists of a seated satyr – like in a design in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Taccuino Senese – which in the Coner drawing is grasping a vase at the skull’s apex almost as if trying to prevent it from slipping off. The drawing, like the one of a helmet above it, is highly finished, and was executed around 1515.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Siena, BCS, Ms. S.IV.8 (Taccuino Senese), fol. 39v (Borsi 1985, pp. 302–10)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Siena, BCS, Ms. S.IV.8 (Taccuino Senese), fol. 39v (Borsi 1985, pp. 302–10)
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 73
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Codex Coner has been made possible through the generosity of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Berlin.
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk