Art: Cellini Discovery

I always had a desire to do some great works in marble.

—Benvenuto Cellini, Treatise on Sculpture

San Francisco’s De Young Museum this week furnished dramatic new evidence that Italy’s famed 16th century Sculptor Cellini, best known for his bronze statuary, including the great Perseus still in Florence, and gold art objects, also did “great works in marble.” Unveiled with a flourish was a 30-in. marble bust of Cosimo de Medici, Duke of Florence (1519-74), a rediscovery by De Young’s Director Walter Heil.*It appeared to be Cellini’s long-lost bid for fame as what he himself claimed he was, “the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo.”

Eighteen months ago a Manhattan art dealer showed Director Heil the marble bust, which Heil from his days as a fellow of the Institute of Art History in Florence readily identified as a smaller copy of Cellini’s bronze bust of Cosimo in the National Museum. Back in San Francisco, Dr. Heil traced references to such a work in the Cellini literature, built up documentation that a marble Cosimo had indeed been carved by Cellini. A memorandum written by Cellini one year before his death in 1571 itemized his marble work, including the Apollo and Narcissus rediscovered in Florence’s Boboli Garden in 1940, a polished marble Crucifix now in the Escorial near Madrid, a bust of the Duchess Eleanora (still lost), and a marble bust of Cosimo. The inventory of Cellini’s studio taken after his death also listed the Cosimo, noting that it was unfinished.

This was enough to send Dr. Heil back to Manhattan for another close-up inspection. With mounting excitement he dated the marble, through ultraviolet examination, as from the 16th century. The workmanship, he found, was Renaissance in character. A few details—unsmoothed caliper marks on the cheeks, one wing of the Medusa head on Cosimo’s armor —seemed unfinished. Otherwise the statue was in near-perfect condition.

After Cellini’s death the bust apparently lost its identity; since 1791 it has been owned by an English noble family that could not prove its authenticity when forced by circumstances to sell it to a U.S. collector. Heil’s conclusion: “It is completely in the personal style of Cellini, and so unique in craftsmanship that nobody but Cellini could have done it.”

*Previous Heil finds: a Verrocchio marble statue on a Manhattan art dealer’s window sill (TIME, March 14, 1949) and a Gentile Bellini Doge in the drawer of a Florentine art shop (TIME, April 17, 1950).