A VENETIAN INKWELL, EARLY 17TH CENTURY INKWELL, VENETO, EARLY 17TH CENTURY patinated bronze depicting Samson and the lion, in which the animal's gaping mouth serves as an inkwell. The model of this group has in the past been variously attributed to different artists, from Pollaiolo to Titian Aspetti, to Anthony Radcliffe to Bernardino Danese, a 17th-century Roman bronzesmith, who noted similarities between the lion in the inkwell and the two lions adorning the pedestal of the bust of Paolo Giordano II Orsini in the Plymouth Museum. Even this attribution, however, did not definitively convince the critics, and in fact a specimen similar to ours, kept at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (inv. no. 1982.60.107), is listed with a generic attribution to an Italian artist of the 17th century; 19x17x13 cm. Provenance Florence Taccani (declaration of 23/12/1983), Milan; Private collection Comparative literature Y. Hackenbroch, Bronzes Other Metalwork and Sculpture in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, New York 1962, p. 16 fig. 47, table 44