Faun
by BANDINELLI, Baccio, Marble, height 58 cm
The talents of Baccio Bandinelli - an ambitious imitator and rival of Michelangelo at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici - revealed themselves particularly in drawing and small-scale plastic art. His monumental sculptural groups are full of contradictions and compositional discord, but in smaller works he demonstrates the clear molding of volumes, smooth treatment of the marble, and moderate use of detail that laid the foundation for academic Classicism.