Skip to main content

Naked Youth with Raised Left Arm

 (Italian, 1470–1532)
Datelate 15th century
MediumBronze
DimensionsH.: 13 1/4 in. (33.7 cm)
Credit LineHenry Clay Frick Bequest
Accession number1916.2.11
Commentary

Scholars have only recently begun to study Paduan sculptors with the care previously devoted to Florentines. Admittedly, many more Florentine sculptors were worthy of such attention, but the Florentines also blew their own trumpets louder and more often than the North Italian biographers and historians; much more is known about their artists than about the North Italians. The artistic identities of three sculptors whose careers overlapped in Padua—Bartolomeo Bellano, Riccio, and Severo da Ravenna—are only now being disentangled. In the process, the production of Riccio, who was the most gifted of the three, and of Bellano, appears to be shrinking rapidly, while Severo is credited with a veritable factory reproducing works by many artists, including Bellano and Riccio. The Frick Collection, for example, has a statuette of David, a variant of a bronze by Bellano, which is now thought to be the work of Severo's shop; on the other hand, the present bronze by Riccio of a Naked Youth with Raised Left Arm was once attributed to Bellano.

The influence of Florentine artists further blurs the regional and individual traits of Paduan sculptors, especially Riccio's. Donatello, who has been cited as inspiration for this Naked Youth, had worked in Padua, and the authority of his example upon local artists was reinforced by Riccio's master, Bellano, who assisted Donatello both in Florence and in Padua. Bertoldo also spent two years on assignments in Padua, and Riccio himself in his youth resided for a time in Florence.

This splendidly modeled figure, believed to be an early work by Riccio, has the rugged virility of a Donatello sculpture and perhaps even greater intensity of emotion. The pose derives from an antique prototype sometimes thought to represent Marsyas at the moment he makes the regrettable decision to pick up the pipes discarded by Athena. His boastful pride over his musical talent soon angered Apollo and led to Marsyas being skinned alive by the god. However, from the grimace of horror on the bronze youth's face, it seems more plausible that he is recoiling from something like a snake rather than from a fate he might have avoided had he foreseen it. Mantegna may have provided the immediate source for the subject, pose, and expression of Riccio's figure; Riccio's bronze closely resembles Mantegna's drawing in the British Museum of a faun attacking a snake and an engraving of the same motif from Mantegna's school.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Collection History

J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York. Duveen. Frick, 1916.

Source: Sculpture in The Frick Collection: Italian. Volume III. New York: The Frick Collection, 1970.

Not On View
Bronze sculpture of a goat, a collar with a bell are around its neck.
Workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
16th century
A bronze lamp that is shaped like a shoe and rests on a pyramidal base.  It is covered with int…
Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
ca. 1516–24
Bronze sculpture of a satyr with an inkstand, candlestick holder and a bowl lifted up to his li…
Workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
early 16th century
A bronze sculpture of Triton and Nereid.  Triton is depicted as half man, half fish.  The nerei…
Workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
16th century
Bronze sculpture of a warrior on horseback.  The warrior figure has his right arm held up as if…
Workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
early 16th century
A bronze sculpture of a seated satyr with inkstand to his left and a candlestick holder held up…
Workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
16th century
Bronze sculpture of a naked youth with raised arms.
Northern Italian
16th century
Bronze sculpture of a satyr with two hands up as if holding a flute that's no longer there
After Maso di Bartolomeo
second half of the 15th century
A marble bust of a young woman.  Her hair is parted in the middle and her curly hair is bound u…
Andrea del Verrocchio (Andrea di Michele de' Cioni)
ca. 1460−70
A white ceramic relief of the Madonna of the Impruneta.  The Madonna is holding an infant Jesus…
After Andrea della Robbia
Sixteenth century or later
Silver medal of a man in profile to the right
Franz Andreas Schega
dated 1763
Closed for renovation
THE FRICK COLLECTION
1 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021

Closed for renovation
FRICK ART RESEARCH LIBRARY
10 East 71st Street
New York, NY 10021

Permanently closed
FRICK MADISON
Copyright © 1998-2024 The Frick Collection. All Rights Reserved.
FacebookYoutubeInstagramTwitterGoogle Arts and Culturemenusearch2xX