17th Century Italian Candlestick with a Selenite Blade Cluster and Fossil Shells

17th century Italian candlestick with aquamarine. The candlestick is from originally from a church in Florence. It hand-carved and hand-painted with hints of pale greenish-hues showi...

17th century Italian "Florence Fragment" mounted with a selenite crystal and free-formed copper. This fragment is from a church in Florence. It was found and saved from the histori...

17th Century Italian candlestick fragment topped with a complete and natural ammonite shell. This Italian fragment is from a church in Florence. It was found and saved from the histo...

Sculptural 17th century Italian gilt candlestick mounted on chalcopyrite and adorned with gold-plated kyanite. This fragment was originally part of a candlestick from a church in It...

IMPERIAL EAGLE Italian, 17th Century sculpture in carved and gilded wood, based on a base decorated with plant motifs and masks with two claw and ball-...

Sculpture (figural candlestick). Carved and polychrome wood, wrought iron. Castilian school, 16tyh-17th centuries. Carved and polychrome wooden sculpture placed on a simple base showing a half-naked male figure, holding with his hands a cloth that covers the lower part of his body in front and holding up a wrought iron cone...

Cerberus Black painted stone Italy, 17th century Measures: 80 x 69 x 36cm (one head missing) Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts (Dante, Inferno, Canto VI). Cerberus figure seated, in his role of ferocious guardian of the underworld; he shows a nervous musculature, an adherent skin which reveals the ribs, long and robust limbs; his heads are broad and the eyes set well apart. Painted in black to amplify his menacing look, the infernal guardian is depicted with his famous attributes, writhing his heads, growling and barking furiously. Cerberus, in Greek mythology, was the monstrous watchdog of the underworld – also known as the “hound of Hades” – preventing the dead from leaving, and making sure that those who entered never left. A child of Typhon and Echidna, he was part of a monstrous family, which included Orthus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimaera as well. Only on three occasions Cerberus was tricked by visitors of Hades: Heracles did it with his strength, Orpheus with his music. In "The Inferno", Dante places Cerberus as the guardian of the third circle of Hell. With his three mouths, Dante saw Cerberus as a beast that was synonymous with the sin of Gluttony. Virgil gets past the monster by throwing mud in his three mouths, temporarily choking him. Very rare are the representations of Cerberus in ancient statuary...

Beautiful carved giltwood baroque ornament. Italy, 17/18th century. Weathered and small losses. Measurement includes the wooden base.