DONATELLO
(b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)

Candelabra Angel

1430s
Bronze, height 68 cm
Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris

Related to the Atys of the Bargello are the two Candelabra Angels of the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. The controversy surrounding their authorship - disputed between Donatello and Luca della Robbia - is still open. The hypothesis, that the two artists collaborated together on the execution of the bronzes for one of the Cantorie, is also plausible. There is the same well-rounded body animated by a strongly pagan vitality and an ambiguous intellectualism which almost seems to foreshadow the Mannerists of a century later.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):
César Franck: Panis angelicus