LOMBARDO, Tullio
(b. ca. 1460, d. 1532, Venezia)

Young Couple (formerly: Bacchus and Ariadne)

1505-10
Marble, height 56 x 71 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

In Venice, during the closing decades of the 15th century, a pure classicising style, derived from Andrea Mantegna, was introduced. Tullio Lombardo turned to classical sculpture proper for his guiding force. His portraits of young couples in high relief (the other is in the Ca' d'Oro in Venice) were inspired by antique funerary busts, but the sculptor completely rejected naturalism. The simplicity of the volumes and the sobriety of expression are set off by decorative refinements which depart from the antique schema. They include embroidered hairnets in the hair and meticulously designed sinuous locks.

The peculiarity of this relief and a similar one in the Cà d'Oro in Venice is that the double portrait of a young couple appears to be placed on a narrow base plate in front of a neutral background. Models for this were provided by the ancient grave sculpture and the type of double portrait, which originated in painting north of the Alps and was also used in Venetian painting in the early 16th century.




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