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Bartolommeo Bellano executed a number of small metal figures for Pope Paul II and for others, and he has been recognized as one of the earliest Italian sculptors to make a speciality of bronze statuettes. The present work is one of Bellano's masterpieces in bronze. Its debt to Donatello's David is reflected in the hero's pose with hip swung out and one arm akimbo and the gigantic head of Goliath at his feet.
A number of later versions testify to the continuing esteem in which this sculpture was held well into the sixteenth century.
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