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Auction: 390 - Renaissance Plaquettes and Commemorative Medals featuring the Neil A. Goodman Collection - e-Auction
Lot: 112

ATTRIBUTED TO COSMÈ TURA (c. 1433-1495
Ercole I d'Este (1431-1505), Duke of Ferrara, and Eleonora d'Aragona (1450-1493), Duchess of Ferrara 1473. Medal, Ferrara, ca, 1477. Bronze, 72mm. 76.68g. DIVI HERCVLIS ESTENSIS ..FERRARIE DVCIS, Bust of Ercole right wearing tall hat, rev. DIVE ELEONORI DE ARAGONIA FERRARIE DVCISSE, Bust left of his Neapolitan wife wearing headcloth. cf. Donatello to Bellini Met Exhibition Catalogue, 2012, No. 81 [Bibliotheque Nationale Specimen same mould -http://www.wga.hu/html_m/t/tura/various/zmedal1.html]]. Hill 117.
This medal depicting Duke Ercole d'Este [obverse] and his Neapolitan wife Eleonora of Aragon [reverse] may have been made to commemorate the family's success in thwarting their attempted deposition by his nephew Niccoló, son of Leonello, in September 1476. A pendant medal depicts the newborn heir Alfonso as the Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpents, an obvious allusion to the survival of the Herculean Dynasty. Luke Syson in 1999 was the first to attribute the pair of medals to the court artist Cosmé Tura, and notes similarities between them and the Met's extraordinary "Portrait of a Young Man", the artist's only surviving painted portrait. The images of the duke and duchess may derive from now-lost paintings and the modeling of the busts in extremely low relief emphasizes their highly graphic quality.
An Extremely Fine old cast. Ex Albert Visart de Bocarmé (1868-1947), collection by descent to his nephew, J Elsen, Sale 131 (Brussels), December 10, 2016, lot 1233.
From the Neil A. Goodman Collection