Il nudo maschile nella statuaria italiana: L'"ADAMO" di Tullio Lombardo -- Provenance -- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. -- ANTINOO -- BACCO --the first monumental classical male nude carved following antiquity,

Speranza



Adamo in posizione chiastica come nella statuaria greca.

Tullio Lombardo (Italian, ca. 1455–1532)

Date:

ca. 1490–95

Culture:

Italian (Venice)

Medium:

Marble

Dimensions:

H. 6 ft. 3 1/2 in. (191.8 cm)

Classification:

Sculpture

Credit Line:

Fletcher Fund, 1936

Accession Number:

36.163

Tullio Lombardo came from a prestigious family of sculptors and architects in Venice. His tomb for the doge Andrea Vendramin (d. 1478) now in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, is the most lavish funerary monument of Renaissance Venice.

It originally contained this life-size figure of Adamo, signed on the base by the sculptor.

The figure of Adamo is clearly classicized, as is the architectural framework derived from the Roman triumphal arch in which he was formerly set.

Adamo is based on a combination of antique figures of

Antinoo and Bacco, interpreted with an almost Attic simplicity.

Further refinements are his meaningful glance and eloquent hands (one holding the Apple of Temptation) and the tree trunk adorned with a serpent and a grapevine, allusions to the Fall and Redemption of Man.

Remarkable for the purity of its marble and the smoothness of its carving, Adamo was the first monumental classical nude carved following antiquity.

Prudery led to its removal from display around 1810–19, when the monument was transferred to SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

Commissioned for the tomb of Doge Andrea Vendramin (1393?–?1478), church of Santa Maria dei Servi, Venice, and later the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, VeniceVendramin-Calergi family (ca. 1819–42)

the duchesse de Berry, Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi, Venice (ca. 1844–65)
Catalogue des objets d'art provenant du Palais Vendramini [sic], à Venise, 1865, p. 5, no. 2; listed but withdrawn from sale; [her sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris May 8–13, 1865, #2] ; Possibly Henri Dieudonné d'Artois, comte de Chambord, 1820–1883 , probably Schloss Frohsdorf, near Vienna (until 1883) ; Possibly Princess Beatrix de Bourbon-Massimo (1893–after 1921?)

Henry Pereire (until 1932) ; by descent, Mme Henry Pereire, Paris until March 1935; sold to Stiebel) ; [ Stiebel, 45, avenue de Montaigne, Paris , until July 1936; sold to Seligmann] ;

Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company, New York , from July 1936–Dec. 1936

Sold to MMA.