Ian Bowles Art

OUTSTANDING MADONNA Bavaria Around 1515/20 Lime wood carved Original, polychrome version Height 60 cm This masterfully carved, full-round Madonna was created around 1515-20 in...

This European metal sculpture, most likely bronze or brass, is probably Anteros, God of requited love. The piece altogether is 18" in height; the figure itself 7.25". The bottom and...

A good antique Italian Grand Tour Bronze and marble bust of Dante Alighieri, circa 1880. The bronze is most likely Florentine and mod...

Cefiro is derived from the Spanish word for Zephyr, meaning a soft gentle wind which brings spring to the Mediterranean. The word also depicts beauty and playfulness. This figure p...

This monumental pair of sculptures in "Bardiglio" marble represent Greek Athlete of Discobolo and the Hercules figure with a lion pelt, on a cylindrical base...

Corpus Christi around 1150/70 Southern France or Catalonia carved oak wood

 height 109 cm, width 96 cm Remains of polychromy

This monumental pair of sculptures in "Bardiglio" marble represent Greek Athlete of Discobolo and the Hercules figure with a lion pelt, on a cylindrical base...

Ferdinand Barbedienne (Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay 1810 – 1892 Paris) after Lorenzo Ghiberti (Florence, 1378 – 1455) Signed at the lower right of the principal relief: F. BARBEDIENNE Provenance: Private Collection, USA. Barbedienne’s “Gates of Paradise” reliefs are one of the triumphs of nineteenth-century bronze casting and patination. The nine panels that comprise our example are half-size reductions of the famous originals by Lorenzo Ghiberti, made for the Baptistery of Florence and now housed in the Museo del Opera del Duomo. Mounted in an impressive, mullioned frame surround, our work is an exceptional exemplar of the Renaissance Revival, the broadly influential style and movement that infused architecture, design, and artistic culture in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The central scene, The Story of Joseph, is perhaps the most celebrated of the entire series depicting as it does seven episodes from the Biblical narrative integrated into a single composition: Joseph cast by his brethren into the well, Joseph sold to the merchants, the merchants delivering Joseph to the pharaoh, Joseph interpreting the pharaoh’s dream, the pharaoh paying him honor, Jacob sending his sons to Egypt, and Joseph recognizes his brothers and returns home. The surrounding reliefs—two vertical figures in niches, two recumbent figures, and four portrait heads in roundels—are as well faithful reductions of Ghiberti’s original bronzes on other parts of the doors. The maker of these casts was the renowned 19th-century French fondeur Ferdinand Barbedienne. Gary Radke has recently written of this great enterprise: “The Parisian bronze caster Ferdinand Barbedienne began making half-sized copies of ancient and Renaissance sculpture in the 1830s. His firm benefitted enormously from the collaboration of Achille Collas, whom Meredith Shedd has shown was one of numerous pioneers in the mechanical reproduction of sculpture. Their competitors largely devoted themselves to reproducing relief sculpture, but Collas devised a process for creating fully three-dimensional copies. A tracing needle, powered by a treadle, moved over the surface of a full-sized plaster cast or bronze of the original and triggered a complementary action in a cutting stylus set over a soft plaster blank…He signed an exclusive contract with Barbedienne on November 29, 1838, and won medals for his inventions in 1839 and 1844. Barbedienne’s half-sized copies of the Gates of Paradise were famous not only for their fidelity to the original, but also for the way their gilding…suggested the glimmering surface that was hidden under centuries of dirt. Some critics even saw Collas’s and Barbedienne’s work as ‘philanthropic, an exemplary adaptation of industry to the requirements of art, the artist, the workers, and the public alike.’ At 25,000 francs, Collas’s and Barbedienne’s reduction of the Gates of Paradise was singularly more expensive than any other item for sale in their shop. All the reliefs, individual statuettes, and busts were cast separately and could be purchased either by the piece or as an ensemble. Fittingly, Barbedienne’s accomplishment earned him the Grand Prix at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, along with numerous other medals.” Three complete examples of the Barbedienne-Ghiberti doors are known. One, first installed in a chapel in the Villa Demidoff of San Donato near Pratolino, was later acquired by William Vanderbilt...

Upper Italy 2nd half 12th century Maple Original version Height 67 cm

ROMAN MADONNA “Sedes Sapientiae” Auvergne Around 1175/80 Pine wood Polychrome remains Height 44 cm This depiction of the Madonna is a masterfully carved, extremely early figure made...

Ira Lujan (Taos Pueblo), Purple and Green Glass Antlers, 2020

This is a one of a kind original bronze surrealist figurative sculpture by San Diego artist, Debbie Korbel. Its dimensions are 41" x 42" x 34". A certifi...