This dramatic sculpture was cast after a famous bronze group by Giambologna, among the most influential sculptors of the sixteenth century. This cast was probably executed by one of the most gifted sculptors in his Florentine workshop, Pietro Tacca. The subject, from classical mythology, is the abduction of Deianira by the centaur Nessus. This particular episode is not often depicted in early modern European art, though mythological episodes of attempted abduction and rape (almost without exception, of women) were a common subject for sumptuous works of art like this.
In the myth, Hercules and his wife, Deianira, attempt to cross a swelling river. The centaur Nessus offers to help Deianira across, while Hercules, the storied hero, swims across on his own. When Hercules reaches the other side, he discovers that Nessus has betrayed him and has abducted his wife. This is the moment depicted here: the centaur struggles to keep his grip on the writhing, terrified woman. The story takes some surprising turns and does not end well. Here, the artist focuses attention on the strain and musculature of the bodies, contrasting animal, male, and female forms and emphasizing the torsion, twists, and dynamism of the group, all resting seemingly impossibly on the centaur’s two hind legs. The sculpture exploits the tensile strength of bronze, typical of Giambologna, who strived for spectacular, inventive effects, verging toward the technically impossible. It’s an amazing feat—even if there is a lead insert in the right leg of the centaur to stabilize the bronze.
This is one of the finest examples of the numerous casts of this group known today.
Nessus and Deianira
The first documented example of this famous bronze group was made by Giovanni Bologna between 1575 and 1577 for the Salviati family of Florence. The three casts signed by him differ slightly from each other, as well as from the Frick model and the many other variants, chiefly in the pose of Deianira and the arrangement of drapery; they are also only half the size of the later variants. These bronzes are an amazing tour de force of casting, with a balance so delicate it is hardly surprising that the centaur's rear legs in all three signed versions have broken in the same place—or that at some time in its past, the Frick bronze was strengthened by a lead insert in the rear right leg. Giovanni Bologna's Mercury, one of the best-known sculptures in history, is poised miraculously on the toes of one foot, but the abduction of Deianira is even more daring and dramatic. One cannot but wonder how such a minor myth, so obscure, so difficult to produce in bronze, came to be chosen for sculpture. The closest antecedent was Pollaiuolo's painting of the abduction, now in the Yale University Art Gallery. The same subject, according to his biographer Condivi, had once been proposed to Michelangelo, but he evidently never undertook such a project. Perhaps Giovanni Bologna, who seems always to have dared the seemingly impossible, deliberately sought comparison with his illustrious Florentine precursors.
According to legend, the centaur Nessus tried to abduct Hercules' wife, Deianira, after offering her a ride across a turbulent river. For his treachery, Hercules killed Nessus with an arrow. The explosive outward movement of the sculpted figures is tightly contained by equally dynamic forces twisting in midair as the two struggle against each other: the terrified Deianira straining back toward her husband while the centaur leaps forward.
Understandably popular, variants of this model were produced over and over by assistants and followers of Giovanni Bologna, many of them made during his lifetime and with his approval. The Frick version has been attributed variously to two of these sculptors: formerly to Adriaen de Vries, but more recently to Pietro Tacca. Tacca (1577–1640) was the last and one of the most gifted sculptors to join Giovanni Bologna's shop, in 1592. He nurtured close personal and professional ties to his master, whom he succeeded as court sculptor. Tacca was an exceptional technician, particularly noted for equestrian statues, such as those for Henri IV, Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany, and Philip III of Spain.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Private collection, Paris (1914). Duveen. Frick, 1915.
Source: Sculpture in The Frick Collection: German, Netherlandish, French and British. Volume IV. New York: The Frick Collection, 1970.
