Attributed to Ferdinando TACCA (Florence, 1619 - 1686) Rearing Horse and Jumping Horse Pair of bronzes with a brown patina shaded with green Heights: 22.5 and 19.5 cm (Restoration to the hind legs on the jumping horse) Resting on wooden bases covered in green velvet (Wear to the velvet) Total heights: 32.5 and 29.5 cm Horse rearing up and horse jumping, bronzes, brown patina, a pair, attr. to F. Tacca H. 8.85 and 7.67 in. Provenance: Private collection, Paris Bibliography: related : Wilhelm Bode, The Italian bronze statuettes of the Renaissance, London, 1908, vol. 3, pl. CCII, p. 5 and p. 31 Anthony Radcliffe, "Ferdinando Tacca, the missing Link in Florentine Baroque Bronzes", Kunst des Barock in der Toskana, dritte folge, band IX, Munich, 1976, p.14-23 Charles Avery and Anthony Radcliffe, Giambologna, 1529-1608: sculptor to the Medici, cat. exhibition, Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum, 19 August-10 September 1978, London, Victoria & Albert Museum, 5 October-16 November 1978, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2 December 1978-28 January 1979, notice 165 written by Katherine Watson, p. 183. Il Seicento Fiorentino. Arte a Firenze da Ferdinando I a Cosimo III, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi , 21 December 1986-4 May 1987, notice by Anthea Brook, p. 169 Edited by Giovanni Pratesi, Repertorio della scultura fiorentina del Seicento e settecento, vol 1, Turin, 1993, p. 62 and p.105 Charles Avery, Giambologna: an exhibition of sculpture by the master and his follower; from the collection of Michael Hall, New York, 1998, p. 204-207, cat. n°128 Anthony Radcliffe and Nicholas Penny, Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500-1650, The Robert H. Smith Collection, London, 2004, pp. 269-271, no. 48 Gordon Balderston, European Sculpture, New York, Daniel Katz limited, 2002, p. 98-103 cat.16 (notice by Catherine Zock) Pietro Cannata, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia. Sculture in Bronzo, Rome 2011, nos. 91 and 92 Dimitrios Zikos, Ferdinando Tacca's High Altar for Santo Stefano al Ponte and its Bronze Adornments, Florence, 2017 Related works : Attributed to Pietro Tacca (1577-1640) and Ferdinando Tacca (1640-1660), Pair of Prancing Horses, bronze, H. 23.5 and H. 22 cm, Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, inv. PV 9292 and 9293 Ferdinando Tacca, Prancing Horses, pair of bronzes, circa 1650, Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello (cited by Watson) Ferdinando Tacca, Prancing and leaping horses, former R. von Mendelssohn collection, Berlin (cited by Bode) Workshop of Ferdinando Tacca, Florence, circa 1640 - circa 1660, Pair of prancing horses, bronzes, dim. 18.3 x 21.3 cm and 20.3 x 22.1 cm, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, NT 514991 and NT 514992 Ferdinando Tacca, Pair of horses, bronzes, size 25 x 23 x 11.6 cm, Polesden Lacey, Surrey, NT 1246220 Ferdinando Tacca, c. 1650, Prancing horse, bronze, 21.5 x 24 cm, Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 2022.181.48 Ferdinando Tacca, Prancing Horse, c. 1650, H. 21,5 cm, The Robert H. Smith Collection Ferdinando Tacca, Prancing Horse, bronze, H. 21.5 cm, formerly from Bruno Dexler, then Daniel Katz Ltd in 2002 Ferdinando Tacca, Prancing horses (tail down and tail up), bronzes, 36.8 × 26.7 and 35.6 × 21.6 cm, Williamstown, Clark Art Institute, inv. nos. 2025.1.84 and 2025.1.85 Attributed to Pietro Tacca (1577-1640), Prancing horse, bronze, 22.23 x 8.26 cm, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, inv. 49.157. It was on the occasion of the major 1979 exhibition dedicated to Giambologna, held successively at the Royal Scottish Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, that the models of these two spirited horses were first identified as being by Ferdinando Tacca (1619-1686). The article written by Katherine Watson convinced the art world that these works belonged to the son of Pietro Tacca, who succeeded his father in 1640 as sculptor and court architect to the Grand Dukes of Medici in Florence. While inheriting the workshop founded by Giambologna and later run by Pietro Tacca, Ferdinando Tacca made a career of designing large-scale architectural projects and ephemeral works for festive and ceremonial events. Although he perpetuated some of the famous models created by Giambologna and then disseminated by his father, Ferdinando Tacca also created original works in a more personal style inspired by the Baroque movement. Following research by Anthony Radcliffe and Charles Avery, Katherine Watson attributed these models to Ferdinando Tacca, demonstrating that his style was both more exuberant and more fluid than that of Giambologna and Pietro Tacca, to whom the horses had previously been attributed. The two prancing horses paired together belong to a rare corpus of only fifteen or so examples in existence today, the most refined of which is in the Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia in Rome. With great virtuosity and admirable inventiveness, the two horses display complex dressage movements. One of the horses rears up on its hind legs, with its front legs bent in what is known as a "corvette" stance. The other performs a pass known as the "pesade": the horse leaps forward with its hind legs stretched out, while its front legs descend. The overall dynamism of the composition is accentuated by the liveliness of the finely chiselled manes, the detail of the hoof and mouth fittings, and the fine brushing of the metal underlined by a brown patina shaded with green. It should be noted that our copy of the horse in pesade is the only version, along with the copies in the Seattle Art Museum and the Bargello, whose tail is raised and tied with a knot, like the copy in the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome. Attributed to Ferdinando TACCA (Florence, 1619 - 1686)