An Allegory of Faith: Lions Devouring a Nude Youth [obverse]

Inscription

upper center on scroll: AM/ANDO IO ("As I love"); around circumference: ET.SI.CORPVS.NON.FIDES.MACVLABITVR [followed by a leafy branch] (though the body may be defiled, [my] faith shall not)[1]

Inscription Notes

[1] This is a free translation of the reading offered by Bertrand Jestaz, Le placchette e i piccoli bronzi. Catalogo del Museum Civico di Belluno, vol. 3, Belluno, 1997: 105, no. 188: "seppure il corpo (lo fosse], la fede non sarà alterata."

Provenance

Gustave Dreyfus [1837-1914], Paris; his estate; purchased 1930 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased 1945 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1957 to NGA.

Bibliography

1931

Ricci, Seymour de. The Gustave Dreyfus Collection. Reliefs and Plaquettes. Oxford, 1931. vol.II, 312.

1965

Pope-Hennessy, John W. Renaissance Bronzes from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Reliefs, Plaquettes, Statuettes, Utensils and Mortars. London, 1965: no. 112.

1983

Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 97, no. 1.

1998

Bekker, Gerd. Europäische Plaketten und Medaillen vom 15. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1998: 51.

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