Tefaf Online 2021

Featuring nearly 700 exceptional artworks from over 250 world-renowned exhibitors, this edition of TEFAF Online celebrates the many connections that can be made across the history of human creativity.

Alessandro Cesati Gallery will participate to this second edition of the digital Tefaf Fair, presenting a terracotta sculpture and an ironwork, both showing amazing quality, rarity and uncommon visual impact.

The first work is a gorgeous terracotta male bust, attributed to Giusto Le Court, a well-known baroque sculptor who was born in Ypres, Flanders (now Belgium) and move to Venice around 1655 after being trained also by his father, Jean – a sculptor, too-, Cornelis Van Mildert and spending some time in Amsterdam.

Since his arrival to Venice, he was asked to complete a large number of monumental marble sculptures that he achieved with an unmistakable style, featuring a intense rendering of movement, volumes and shadows. The energy hailing from Le Court’s sculptures is very well represented by this bust: a particularly rare proof in terracotta of his talent. Scholars think that the bust may represent Vulcan, since in Venetian Villas at that time it was very common to find representations of Ancient Greek Gods or Philosophers: the wet turban and the astonishing neck and shoulders muscles may be a clue.
Giusto-Le-Court-Male-Bust-Vulcan

The second work of art presented by Alessandro Cesati gallery is an important example of our traditional keen attention to metal works of art: this Iron Sculpture belongs to a category which has always fascinated us and continues to offer a thrilling source of inspiration for research and study, driven by our almost empathetic predilection for these intriguing artifacts, linked to distant family tales, memories and experiences.

We are showing a surprising Processional Cross, which is to be considered an outstanding example of Spanish ironwork. It shows a superb embossing and sculpting work, particularly appreciable not only in the two central disks of the Cross, representing the Heavenly Jerusalem on the front and the Veronica on the back, but also in the amazingly dynamic heads decorating the Cross finials.

Iron sculptures, undoubtedly less known and celebrated, are perhaps even more interesting and rare because they are absolute uniqueness; they’re masterworks worthy of their place in any ancient or modern Wunderkammer.

spanish-iron-cross-renaissance