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  • image SM volume 115/162d

Reference number

SM volume 115/162d

Purpose

Drawing 4 (bottom left): Foliate candelabrum and scroll with two storks

Aspect

Part of an ornamental composition

Scale

Not known

Signed and dated

  • c.1515
    Datable to c.1515

Medium and dimensions

Pen and brown ink over brown chalk

Hand

Bernardo della Volpaia

Notes

This decorative ensemble, drawn c.1515, consists of a foliate candelabrum with a stork halfway up, which rises from a foliate scroll with a dolphin protome and with a second stalk above it. Ashby presumed that it was a record – despite its lack of overall symmetry – of some ancient painted decoration, proposing that it could have been based on an example from the Golden House of Nero, but there is no evidence to support such a conclusion. Immediately above the second stork is a faint drawing in brown chalk of the same stork, presumably a trial attempt executed before the finished version.

Literature

Ashby 1904, p. 74
Census, ID 47227

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