| Written records describe Andrea Mantegna as a painter, draughtsman, engraver and sculptor. The Marsyas/St Sebastian, recently attributed to Mantegna, may convey an impression of his qualities as a sculptor. This sculpture of a naked man bound to a tree-trunk with both hands operates on two levels of meaning, one mythological and one religious. It could be the satyr and renowned flautist Marsyas. Greek myth relates how he challenged Apollo to a musical contest, which he lost. To punish him for his pride, Apollo had Marsyas flayed alive. The no less brutal alternative represents the martyrdom of St Sebastian. An bodyguard of the emperor Diocletian, he was executed by archers for protecting Christians from persecution. It is assumed that the holes in his body, which once contained arrows, were a later modification. Perhaps the figure was originally intended to be Marsyas and then reworked as St Sebastian. The sculpture may have stood in the grotta of Isabella d’Este (1474–1539) in Mantua during the sixteenth century. Its 1542 inventory records “a naked figure bound to a trunk”. Stylistically, too, it matches the work of the artists active at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. The descriptive naturalism of the pain-racked features and the elegance of the slender body wound around the tree create tension within the figure. |
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Bronze gilded
height 35 cm
Inv.-No. SK18
Provenance: 1542 presumably in the inventory of the grotta of Isabella d’Este in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua; 2001 acquired by Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein
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