Style of Andrea Briosco, called Riccio
Boy with an insect (inkwell)
- Inv. ЗС-159
- Bronze
- 20 x 21 cm.
- Conservator: M. Tulubensky, 2018
An inkwell depicting a boy wrestling a huge (full-sized) grasshopper hiding in the branches of a tree was donated to the Berlin museums in 1901 by an anonymous donor from Munich. The work is distinguished by an original composition and a complete lack of analogues in museums and private collections. Wilhelm von Bode (1907) suggested an attribution, later endorsed by Leo Planiscig, to the workshop of Andrea Riccio, an important Paduan sculptor famous notably to depict animals and insects in life size using casts from nature. Nowadays, this attribution seems questionable, which does not detract from the artistic merits of this unusual work.
Conservation
The metal composition was determined. The surface was cleaned and consolidated.