16th Century Marble apothecary or wine vessel valencia family

A beautiful hand-turned maple vessel signed on the base Jill Johnston N245 3-99 and maple. It has a ring of inlaid decoration.

A Cizhou decorated stoneware wine vessel likely late 19th century but possibly earlier. Nice paint and decoration, with good scale. There are numer...

A quite elegant hand-turned bowl or vessel by the noted artist John Mascoll. It is signed on the base box elder and John Mascoll.

A wonderful large-scale and quite heavy three-dimensional fitted marble and steel sculpture. The base is steel and the two sides slip into slots in the base as the middle ball is hel...

A large dark green marble dated 1957 by the Canadian artist Stanley Lewis. It is inscribed on the base Lewis 57. Depicts a face carved into the sides. The piece is quite large and he...

A wonderful carved wood bird in flight mounted on a bronze arm painted black which attaches to a marble base. The person we acquired this sculpture from claimed that it belonged to h...

This is really very early and has incredible presence in person. Looks like many of the artifacts I've seen in the museums. It originated from the countryside of France and is a grea...

Fine, hand-carved, Carrara marble, robed figure from central Italy modeled in the Classical, contrapposto pose. The inscription fragment on the base reads "..under the auspices of...".

This fine and imposing sculpture is an excellent example of 16th century Italian craftsmanship. The figure is stood on a raised, shaped rectangular base with a carved "dolphin" at th...

Sea monster Carrara marble mouth fountain Italy, late 16th century It measures 13.8 x 31.5 x 18.9 in (35 x 80 x 48 cm) State of conservation: some small evident gaps and widespread signs of wear due to outdoor exposure. The gray marks crossing it do not come from restoration, but are rather the natural veins of the marble. This work has some morphological characteristics typically associated with the iconography of the sea monster: an elongated muzzle, sharp teeth, protruding eyes, elongated ears, and a coiled serpent's tail. An in-depth series of studies on artistic depictions of the sea monster attempted to verify how this symbol evolved in antiquity in the European and Mediterranean contexts and how it gradually changed its image and function over time. The iconography itself is mutable and imaginative and its history is rich with cultural and artistic exchange, as well as the overlapping of ideas. This occurred so much that it is difficult to accurately pinpoint the "types" that satisfactorily represent its various developments. However, we can try to summarize the main figures, starting from the biblical Leviathan and the marine creature that swallowed Jonah (in the Christian version, this figure was to become a whale or a "big fish", the “ketos mega”, translation of the Hebrew “dag gadol”). Other specimens ranged from the dragons mentioned in the Iliad (which were winged and had legs) to "ketos” (also from Greek mythology), the terrifying being from whose Latinized name (“cetus”) derives the word "cetacean". See J. Boardman, “Very Like a Whale” - Classical Sea Monsters, in Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, in Papers presented in Honor of Edith Porada, Mainz am Rhein 1987, pp. 73-84). In Italy the monster underwent yet further variations: it can be found in Etruscan art on the front of some sarcophagi representing the companion of souls, while among the Romans we find the “Pistrice” (cited by Plinio in Naturalis Historia PLIN., Nat., II 9, 8 and by Virgilio in Eneide: VERG., Aen., III, 427), which appeared in the shape of a stylized hippocampus or a very large monstrous cetacean and evolved into a hideous being with a dragon's head and long webbed fins. During the Middle Ages, the sea monster was the object of new transformations: at this time, it is often winged, the head is stretched like a crocodile, the front legs are often very sharp fins - sometimes real paws - until the image merges with dragons, the typical figures of medieval visionary spirituality widely found throughout Europe (on this topic and much more, see: Baltrušaitis, J., Il Medioevo fantastico. Antichità ed esotismi nell’arte gotica, Gli Adelphi 1997). In Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries, the revival of classicism - representative of the humanistic and Renaissance periods - led to a different reading of these "creatures". Indeed, the sea monster was also to find widespread use as an isolated decorative motif, especially in numerous fountains and sculptures where dolphins or sea monsters were used as a characterizing element linked to water (on this theme see: Chet Van Duzer, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, London, The British library, 2013). From the morphological point of view, the "sea monsters" of this period are mostly depicted as hybrid figures, in which the body of a mythological or real being (a hippocampus, a sea snake, a dolphin), is joined to a head with a rather indistinct appearance. It was usually characterized by large upright ears, an elongated snout, sharp teeth and globular, protruding eyes; a complex and indefinite figure, both from the symbolic point of view and from that of its genesis. The work we are examining is placed as a cross between the medieval sea serpent and the Renaissance dolphin, with stylistic features which recall the snake as often used in heraldry (such as the "snake" depicted in the coat of arms of the Visconti - the lords and then dukes of Milan between 1277 and 1447 - and which, for some, may be derived from the representations of the “Pistrice” that swallowed Jonah). In the search for sources, Renaissance cartography and in particular woodcuts should not be neglected. See for example the monsters of Olaus Magnus, from the editions of the “Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus” (“History of the peoples of the north”) and the natural histories of Conrad Gesner, Ulisse...

Lombardy, late 16th century Pair of holding angels (2) Marble, 40 x 29 x 15 cm At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries in the Lombardy area, and especially in the Parma area, t...

French Victorian bronze figure of a 16th century man holding a quill and book with a guitar on base (signed).