Pair Of Bronze Firedogs With Dragons — 18th Century

Patinated bronze firedogs with dragons.
Bronze patinated.
Italy.
18th Century.
43 x 62 x 23 cm.

This pair of patinated bronze firedogs depicts two imposing female dragons.

Designed to hold logs somewhat above the fire, bronze firedogs of this kind have been intended, since at least the 16th century, to “grace the fireplaces of noble palaces”. One should then imagine these two dragonesses emerging among the flames of the hearth in a princely residence.

The details of the sculpture of these dragonesses, their large clawed paws, the wrinkles on their chests, the feathers of each wing, the modeling of their heads: all indicate the manner of an artisan eager to impress as much with the shape of his work as with his own virtuosity.

Thus, this pair of firedogs belongs, both technically and stylistically, to the fantastical Italian bestiary of the 16th and 17th centuries. They are among the famous bronze dragons of the great sculptors of the Cinquecento and Seicento: such as Severo de Ravenna's at the Museo Correr in Venice or those of the firedogs with dragons at the Victoria & Albert Museum, attributed to Giuseppe de Levis. These dragon firedogs can also be compared to a bronze dragon exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and attributed to the founder Giacomo Laurenziani. James Draper, then curator of European sculptures at the Metropolitan, compares the head of this dragon to the bronzes of the Fountain of the Dragons in the Apostolic Palace of Loreto, which are by the hand of the sculptors Tarquinio and Pietro Paolo Iacometti.

Sources

Peta Motture, « The Production of Firedogs in Renaissance Venice », in Large Bronzes in the Renaissance, 2003, New Haven.