Hang Around the World: Sculpture #3

Chapter 3 - Group Sculpture: interaction between forms

Equestrian statue: Charlemagne or Charles the Bald

Charlemagne or Charles the Bald
- bronze, formerly gilded (25 cm) 9th century
- Louvre (Paris)

The monarch, holding an orb and a sword (now missing), asserts his authority as a conqueror.

Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1400-1475)

Bartolomeo Colleoni
- Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488, Florentian)
- bronze (395 cm) c.1479-1488 (cast by Alessandro Leopardi)
- Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Venice)

The Bronze Horseman
- an equestrian statue of Peter the Great
- the name comes from an 1833 poem of the same name by Pushkin

The Bronze Horseman
- Étienne Maurice Falconet (1716–1791, French) 1768–1782
- Senate Square (Saint Petersburg)

Catherine the Great (originally from Prussia) commissioned the construction of this statue, and had it inscribed with the phrase 'Peter the First / Catherine the Second / Summer 1782', in Russian.

One of her efforts to announce she (wife of Peter the Third whom she had overthrown via coup d'état) was the immediate successor to Peter the First.

Madonna and Child

Madonna and Child
- Giovanni Pisano (1248–1315, Italian)
- marble (97+35=132 cm) c.1302
- Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (Pisa)

Madonna and Child
- Henry Moore (1898–1986, English)
- bronze (155 x 85 x 70 mm) 1943
- Church of St Matthew (Northampton)

Rondanini Pietà
- Michelangelo (1475–1564, Italian)
- marble (195 cm) 1552-1564
- Castello Sforzesco (Milan)

Virgin Mary mourning over the emaciated body of the dead Christ.
The sculpture stood for centuries in the courtyard at the Palazzo Rondanini in Rome.

Samson Slaying a Philistine

Samson Slaying a Philistine

- Giovanni Bologna (1529-1608, Italian)

- marble (210 cm) c.1562

- Victoria and Albert Museum (London)

The Three Graces

The Three Graces
- Antonio Canova (1757-1822, Venetian)
- marble (180 cm) 1814-17
- Victoria and Albert Museum (London) ＆
Scottish National Gallery (Edinburgh), in turn

A Neoclassical sculpture of the mythological three charites, daughters of Zeus – from L to R, Euphrosyne (representing mirth), Aglaea (elegance) and Thalia (youth/beauty).
* There is another Canova's copy at the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg).

Cf.

The Three Graces
- Jean-Baptiste REGNAULT (1754-1829, French)
- oil (204 x 153 cm) 1793-1794
- Louvre (Paris)

The Burghers of Calais

The Burghers of Calais
- Auguste Rodin (1840–1917, French)
- bronze (202 × 205 × 196 cm) 1884–89
- Town Hall (Calais)

Les Bourgeois de Calais commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, was under siege by the English for about eleven months.
(See the big key to the city gate, to be surrendered to King Edward III of England, by this voluntary team of six?)