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This fall, The Frick Collection presents the first ever exhibition to focus on Siena as a center of artistic excellence and technical innovation in bronze sculpture during the Italian Renaissance. Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450 – 1500 brings together nearly forty works —including statues, reliefs, candelabra, medals, and more—by some of the most influential sculptors in this period, among them Donatello, Vecchietta , and Francesco di Giorgio. Owing to their size and importance, many of these objects have neverbeen shown outside of Tuscany, let alone in the United States.
Building on popular past presentations of bronze sculpture at the Frick, the exhibitioninvites visitors to appreciate the medium’s extraordinary beauty and versatility while
discovering the technical ingenuity, collaboration, and political ambition behind Sienese
bronzework. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue also present significant new
discoveries and attributions, offering fresh insights into the authorship, dating, and meaning
of several major works.
Italian lenders to the exhibition include the Museo Nazionale del Bargello , Florence ;
the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples; the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia;
the Museo Diocesano Albani , Urbino ; and the Museo Civico , Siena. Other major lenders
include the National Gallery of Art, Washington , D.C.; the British Museum and the Victoria
and Albert Museum , London ; the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und
Museum für Byzantinische Kunst; and the Skulpturensammlung, Dresden.
Commented Dalvit: “Between 1450 and 1500, almost nowhere in Italy did local artistic
traditions rely so heavily on a single medium as Siena’s did on bronze . Y et, the Tuscan city has
been celebrated chiefly for its paintings —as demonstrated by the landmark exhibition Siena:
The Rise of Painting, 1300 – 1350, presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
National Gallery , London, in 2024 – 25. Now, we are excited to bring long-overdue attention to
Sienese bronze sculpture, exploring both the medium’s and the city’s underappreciated
importance in Renaissance art history . Uniting some forty masterworks for the first time in
one location, this exhibition highlight s the revelatory achievements of Sienese artists, which
constitute nothing short of a golden age of bronze sculpture .”
The familiar story of the Renaissance has long been centered on Florence. Some forty
miles south, Siena at this time was pursuing an artistic trajectory at once intimately linked to
its rival and consciously its own. Its position as one of the most important pilgrimage stops on
the Via Francigena , which connected Rome to France and England , helped make the city a
crucial crossroads for artists, objects, and ideas . After it was defeated in the 1550s by Florence,
Siena stood in the city’s political and cultural shadow, framed as the epitome of the medi eval
past. This exhibition challenges that perception by provid ing an in-depth survey of Siena’s
unparalleled achievements in sculpture , as well as offering a study of bronze as a medium in all
its complexity.
Costly, technically demanding, and endlessly reusable, bronze was as vulnerable as it
was precious: In times of war or necessity, sculpture s could be melted down and recast for
more utilitarian uses, making the works that survive today exceptionally rare. Bringing
together virtually every Sienese bronze from the period that could safely travel, the exhibition
ranges from small -scale, jewel-like works and visionary reliefs to breathtaking life-size statues,
revealing a story of ambition, invention, rivalry, and artistic revolution.
A JOURNEY THROUGH SIENESE BRONZE
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450 – 1500 is presented in the suite of three rooms that compris e
the Frick’s Ronald S. Lauder E xhibition Galleries, creating an immersive, enveloping
experience. The exhibition is divided into thematic sections, as detailed below.
decorative and utilitarian purposes—from its use in churches and household settings to
stables, the battlefield, and beyond. This section highlights the complex site of the bronze
foundry, where engineers, founders, goldsmiths, and sculptors shared materials and expertise
and could each have a hand in the creation of a single object. The complexities of bell casting is
represented by a majestic work created in 1454 for a church outside Siena connected to its
great hospital complex, Santa Maria della Scala. Other objects include an ornate flagpole-
torchère, a horse ring, and a gilded trefoil relief possibly used as a sword pommel , which
further dissolve the modern boundaries between art and industry . Nearby, books with
drawings of bronze cannons made for the powerful Orsini family and the Sienese state attest to
the prestige of the city’s founding industry.
Visitors next enter a small room devoted to Donatello —the most celebrated sculptor
of the age—and to his Sienese sojourn of 1457– 61. Long presented as yet another episode of
Florentine influence on local artists, this moment is radically recast by the exhibition,
revealing how Donatello was prevented from producing a single new work in Siena due to
political turmoil and local anti -Florentine sentiment. He is therefore represented by the
astonishing tomb slab of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Pecci, Bishop of Grosseto —cast before his
arrival in the city and sent there for assembly and installation. An over life-size bronze with
traces of inlaid enamel or resin, this masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture takes pride of place
in the show, exemplifying Donatello’s revolutionary innovations in spatial illusion and
expression . One of only eight signed works by the artist in exist ence, the tomb slab makes its
United States debut in this show, having never before been exhibited outside of Tuscany.
The third and largest gallery within the exhibition dives deeper into the possibilities
and challenges of expression in bronze. Following the tomb slab by Donatello, t he first
grouping further explores the memorializing potential of bronze in funerary sculptures . These
remarkably present likenesses were usually reserved for higher ranking members of the
clergy, though a notable example in the show is the unfinished monument commemorating
Mariano Sozzini the Elder , a jurist of European renown and friend of Pope Pius II. On loan
from Florence’s Bargello Museum, it is the only bronze effigy of a layman to survive from
fifteenth-century Italy. Sozzini appears newly laid upon a bier, dressed in the robe and
headband of his profession, with incredible drapery and lifelike face, feet, and hands that may
have been molded directly from the corpse. This section of the show also includes Vecchietta ’s
last will and testament, which features, in place of a signature, a drawing of his Christ as the
Man of Sorrows uniquely created for his own funerary chapel, forever binding the artist’s
identity to the last bronze he cast.
The next section features a grouping of significant bronze portrait medals , which—
compared to funerary sculptures’ preservation of identity after death —fashioned and
promoted sitters’ identities during their li ves. The group of eight works are all made by or
attributed to Francesco di Giorgio , with portraits of notable rulers, humanists, bankers, and
soldiers on the obverse and mythological or allegorical subjects on the reverse. T hese
intimate, handheld, portable objects expanded portraiture beyond mere likeness, revealing
another side of the sitter’s identity . Exquisitely crafted, they carried the reputation of both
sitter and artist far and wide.
The central section of this gallery reunites for the first time all the portable bronze
reliefs produced in Siena in the period —a type of object that flourished there as nowhere else.
This genre occupies a fertile space between painting and sculpture, demonstrating sculpture’s
ability , in the absence of color , to manipulate light, shadow, space, depth, and narrative drama.
Importantly, visitors will be able to see many of the reliefs from both the front and back,
revealing the technical challenges inherent to casting these works. Represented here is
Francesco di Giorgio , whose boldly untooled surfaces produce atmospheric effects so
extraordinary that his reliefs were once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci . By contrast, reliefs by
his master, Vecch ietta, demonstrate the latter’s more refined and jewel-like clarity . Among
these is his masterpiece Resurrection of Christ , the only known signed work by th e artist
outside of Italy . T he relief was a gift from the dealer Joseph Duveen to Henry Clay Frick and
served as a major source of inspiration for th e exhibition.
The next display is devoted to a group of six freestanding statues and statuettes, a form
that tests and exploits the limits of bronze more fully than any other , with dramatically
projecting arms, lifted legs, and bodies poised beyond their center s of gravity . Ancient
sculpture offered Renaissance artists fruitful examples of such expressive bodies in bronze —
but rather than simply reviving antique types, Sienese artists used them as points of departure
to test new possibilities of pose, scale, and character.
Th is display includes a Hercules from Berlin newly attributed to Francesco di Giorgio,
shown alongside a closely related statuette from the Frick. Completing the group is a third ,
monumental Hercules from Dresden, whose iconography, dating , and attribution the
exhibition clarifies for the first time. In another pairing, a Frick statuette of David with the
Head of Goliath , attributed to Giovan ni di Stefano, is shown alongside a smaller work of the
same subject attributed to Francesco di Giorgio from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.
Finally, a panel in this section explains the complex, multistep process of bronze casting —
notably the lost-wax method, which dates back to antiquity —shedding further light on the
enormous efforts that went into producing each work in the show.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450 – 1500 is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue that provides
an overview of Siena’s entire bronze production, essays on the different types of works on
display, and entries for each object in the show. These texts are complemented by
new photography of nearly all of Siena’s surviving fifteenth -century bronzes, newly
discovered archival documents, and extensive scientific analysis coordinated by Victoria
Schussler, Associate Conservator at the Frick.
The catalogue is authored by Dalvit with extensive contributions by an international
group of esteemed scholars: Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (University of Amsterdam and the
Rijksmuseum), Giampaolo Ermini ( independent scholar ), Gabriele Fattorini (University
of Florence), Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum, Berlin), Scott Nethersole (Radboud
University , Nijmegen ), Alison Wright (University College London), and Giulia Zaccariotto
(Accademia Carrara, Bergamo).
The hardcover volume of nearly 400 pages is published by The Frick Collection in
association with Paul Holberton Publishing ($60 ; Frick members: $48 in-store, $54 online).
Vecchietta (Italian, 1410–1480)
Resurrection of Christ
1472
Leaded low-tin bronze
21 3/8 × 16 1/4 × 1 1/2 in. (54.3 × 41.3 × 3.8 cm)
The Frick Collection, New York
 Donatello (Italian, ca. 1386–1466) Tomb Slab of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Pecci, Bishop of Grosseto and Istia d’Ombrone ca. 1452 Medium-tin bronze (slab), with patinated copper and traces of polychrome enamels or resins 98 1/4 × 42 1/16 × approx. 1 in. (249.5 × 106.8 × approx. 2.5–3 cm) Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Siena  Attributed to Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Hercules Triumphing over Achelous Late 1480s (?) Copper alloy 17 5/8 × 11 3/4 in. (44.8 × 29.8 cm) The Frick Collection, New York  Attributed to Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Hercules Triumphing over the Nemean Lion Late 1480s (?) Quaternary alloy (copper, lead, tin, zinc) 15 5/8 × 8 3/16 × 7 1/16 in. (39.7 × 20.8 × 18 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Bode-Museum)  Attributed to Giovanni di Stefano (Italian, 1443–1502) David with the Head of Goliath 1490s (?) Low-tin bronze h. 29 1/2 in. (74.9 cm) The Frick Collection, New York  Giovanni di Stefano (Italian, 1443–1502) and collaborator Hercules Fighting Achelous 1489–90 Quaternary alloy (copper, tin, lead, zinc) 44 11/16 × 25 3/8 × 16 5/16 in. (113.5 × 64.5 × 41.5 cm)  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Jerome Probably ca. 1475 Copper diam. 8 7/16 in. × 1 3/8 in. (21.5 × 3.5 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Bode-Museum)  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. John the Baptist Probably ca. 1475 Copper 7 1/2 × 7 3/4 × 1 5/8 in. (19.1 × 19.7 × 4.1 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Sebastian Probably ca. 1475 Copper 7 1/2 × 7 7/8 × 1 3/4 in. (19.1 × 20 × 4.4 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Anthony the Abbot Probably ca. 1475 Copper alloy diam. 7 15/16 × 2 1/16 in. (20.2 × 5.3 cm) Lichtenstein. The Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Jerome in the Wilderness Early 1470s (?) Leaded low-tin bronze 21 5/8 × 14 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (54.9 × 37.1 × 3.8 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Judgment of Paris Early 1480s (?) Low-tin bronze 5 1/2 × 5 1/16 × approx. 1/4 in. (140 × 129 × approx. 0.6 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection  Vecchietta (Italian, 1410–1480) or Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Gisant of Mariano Sozzini the Elder Late 1460s or early 1490s Low-tin bronze approx. 18 11/16 × 63 × 11 13/16 in. (47.5 × 165 × 30 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence ,%20Minerva%20(reverse).jpg) Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Borghese Borghesi (obverse); Minerva (reverse) 1479–82 Bronze (cast) diam. 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence ,%20A%20Unicorn%20Dipping%20Its%20Horn%20into%20a%20Stream%20(reverse).jpg) Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Frederick of Aragon (obverse); A Unicorn Dipping Its Horn into a Stream (reverse) Early 1480s (possibly 1479–80) Bronze (cast) diam. 2 3/16 in. (5.6 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence  Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Virgin and Child with Three Angels 1470s (?) Bronze 13 3/8 × 8 1/2 × approx. 1 3/8 in. (34 × 21.6 × approx. 3.5 cm) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna   Attributed to Giacomo Cozzarelli (Italian, 1453–1515) Flagpole-Torchère and Horse Ring Probably 1507–12 Copper alloy (horse ring) Leaded low-tin bronze (flagpole-torchère) approx. 37 × 17 11/16 in. (94 × 45 cm) (flagpole-torchère) approx. 29 7/16 × 12 5/8 in. (70 × 32 cm) (horse ring) Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Siena, Grosseto, and Arezzo |
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| Attributed to Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) David with the Head of Goliath Late 1480s (?) Bronze 14 3/4 × 6 1/4 × 3 9/16 in. (37.5 × 15.8 × 9 cm) Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Jerome Probably ca. 1475 Copper diam. 8 7/16 in. × 1 3/8 in. (21.5 × 3.5 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Bode-Museum) |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. John the Baptist Probably ca. 1475 Copper 7 1/2 × 7 3/4 × 1 5/8 in. (19.1 × 19.7 × 4.1 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Sebastian Probably ca. 1475 Copper 7 1/2 × 7 7/8 × 1 3/4 in. (19.1 × 20 × 4.4 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Anthony the Abbot Probably ca. 1475 Copper alloy diam. 7 15/16 × 2 1/16 in. (20.2 × 5.3 cm) Lichtenstein. The Princely Collections, |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) St. Jerome in the Wilderness Early 1470s (?) Leaded low-tin bronze 21 5/8 × 14 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (54.9 × 37.1 × 3.8 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Judgment of Paris Early 1480s (?) Low-tin bronze 5 1/2 × 5 1/16 × approx. 1/4 in. (140 × 129 × approx. 0.6 cm) National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection |
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| Vecchietta (Italian, 1410–1480) or Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Gisant of Mariano Sozzini the Elder Late 1460s or early 1490s Low-tin bronze approx. 18 11/16 × 63 × 11 13/16 in. (47.5 × 165 × 30 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Borghese Borghesi (obverse); Minerva (reverse) 1479–82 Bronze (cast) diam. 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Frederick of Aragon (obverse); A Unicorn Dipping Its Horn into a Stream (reverse) Early 1480s (possibly 1479–80) Bronze (cast) diam. 2 3/16 in. (5.6 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Jacopo Petrucci (obverse); An Eagle on a Mount Comprising Nine Hills (reverse) 1487–95 Highly leaded low-zinc brass (cast) diam. 2 3/16 in. (5.5 cm) Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Federico da Montefeltro (obverse); Bellerophon and the Chimera (reverse) Probably 1474–79 Bronze (cast) diam. 3 3/4 in. (9.6 cm) The British Museum, London |
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| Workshop of Vecchietta (Italian, 1410–1480) Flagellation of Christ Early 1460s (?) Low-tin bronze (relief); gilded walnut (frame) 9 5/8 × 11 15/16 × 1 9/16 in. (24.4 × 30.4 × 4 cm) (unframed) 16 1/8 × 16 7/8 × 1 15/16 in. (41 × 42.8 × 5 cm) (framed) Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Bequeathed by George Salting |
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| From a model by (?) Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Unidentified Scene, Known as the Late 15th century Painted stucco or gypsum plaster 18 11/16 × 26 3/4 × approx. 1 15/16 in. (47.5 × 68 × approx. 5 cm) Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Flagellation of Christ 1480s/90s Low-tin bronze 22 1/2 × 15 7/8 × 11/16 in. (57.2 × 40.3 × 1.68 cm) Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia |
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| Attributed to Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Ambrogio Spannocchi de’ Piccolomini (obverse); Mercury (reverse) Before 1478 (possibly 1458/59) Bronze (cast) diam. 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Münzkabinett |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Bellerophon and the Chimera 1470s Medium-zinc brass, gilded on the front (cast) 3 3/4 × 3 11/16 × 1/4 in. (9.5 × 9.4 × 0.6 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Bode-Museum) |
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| Sienese Draftsman Six Bombards for a Member of the Orsini Family 1469/70–1476/77 Pen and brown ink, with wash, on parchment 10 1/2 × 14 3/16 in. (26.6 × 36 cm) (overall) Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Juan de Mendoza (obverse); Hope (reverse) ca. 1480–85 Bronze (cast) diam. 2 3/16 in. (5.5 cm) Gabinetto Numismatico e Medagliere, Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Calabria (obverse); Sacrificial Scene (reverse) 1479–80 Quaternary alloy (copper, lead, tin, zinc) (cast) diam. 2 3/8 × 3/16 in. (6.1 × 0.5 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Bode-Museum) |
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| Vecchietta (Italian, 1410–1480) The Man of Sorrows in Lieu of a Signature on the Artist’s Last Will and Testament 1479 Gold, pen and ink on parchment approx. 4 3/4 × 2 3/8 in. (12 × 6 cm) (drawing); 14 5/16 × 9 13/16 in. (36.4 × 25 cm) (parchment) Archivio di Stato di Siena (Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala 56, fol. 257r) |
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| Attributed to Giacomo Cozzarelli (Italian, Flagpole-Torchère and Horse Ring Probably 1507–12 Copper alloy (horse ring) Leaded low-tin bronze (flagpole-torchère) approx. 37 × 17 11/16 in. (94 × 45 cm) (flagpole-torchère) approx. 29 7/16 × 12 5/8 in. (70 × 32 cm) (horse ring) Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Siena, Grosseto, and Arezzo |
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| Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Candelabrum ca. 1474/75–82 Low-tin bronze 64 9/16 × 17 11/16 in. (164 × 45 cm) Museo Diocesano Albani di Urbino, Arcidiocesi di Urbino-Urbania-Sant’Angelo in Vado |
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Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Virgin and Child with Three Angels 1470s (?) Bronze 13 3/8 × 8 1/2 × approx. 1 3/8 in. (34 × 21.6 × approx. 3.5 cm) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Deposition of Christ from the Cross with a Group of Donors (Federico da Montefeltro and 1473–74 Medium-tin bronze 33 7/16 × 22 1/4 × 2 15/16 in. (85 × 56.5 × 7.5 cm) Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo |
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Francesco di Giorgio (Italian, 1439−1501) Antonio Spannocchi (obverse); A Salamander Nestling in a Bonfire (reverse) 1490s (possibly 1494) Bronze (cast) Museo Civico, Siena | |||||
