Naked Youth with Raised Arms
Like the Faun Playing the Flute attributed to Camelio, this Naked Youth with Raised Arms has been attributed by some to Francesco da Sant'Agata. However, the two bronzes differ stylistically, the faun being rounded and robust in form, the naked youth more elongated and attenuated, with more finely finished detail.
The naked youth is one of numerous derivations based on a famous Greek bronze which arrived in Venice from Rhodes in 1503. Because the upraised arms of the original (now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin) had broken off beyond the shoulders, sculptors of the many dependent versions completed and identified their subjects variously, as anything from a St. Sebastian to a Niobid or, more generically, a Supplicant. The model was also transformed into a female nude. The Greek bronze was known in Venice as the Adorante, and perhaps something of a prayerful significance lingers in the upward yearning stretch of the slender youth.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Henry Joseph Pfungst, London. Sold through Durlacher, June 6, 1903, for £1,000, under an ascription to Sant’Agata, to 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.
