One of the finest Italian Renaissance bronzes ever made, a miniature of an ancient Greek marble statue of Apollo, has been donated to the nation in lieu of a £10.5m inheritance tax bill.
The Apollo Belvedere, created 500 years ago by Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, known as Antico, will go on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, home to an outstanding collection of Renaissance and baroque bronzes.
The acquisition, under the government’s acceptance in lieu (AiL) scheme, will be formally announced by the Arts Council later this month. The bronze had been owned by Cecil Lewis, a property developer, and his wife, Hilda, who were philanthropists and art collectors.
The AiL scheme allows people to settle an inheritance tax bill by transferring important cultural, scientific or historic objects to the nation. In the past decade, the scheme has brought £479m worth of artworks and other objects into public ownership.
Antico’s parcel-gilt bronze figure, inlaid with silver eyes, was “the quintessential Italian Renaissance bronze masterpiece”, the Fitzwilliam said. Created around 1520-22, it is just 41.3cm (16 in) high.
The celebrated marble statue of Apollo the bronze depicts, which dates to the second century AD and was once the most famous statue in the world, is over 2.1 metres (7ft) tall. It was rediscovered in the late 15th century, and has been part of the Vatican collection since 1511.
Luke Syson, the Fitzwilliam’s director, said: “What is most remarkable is the way [Antico] takes an ancient marble sculpture that had been rediscovered only relatively recently and turns it from something so beautiful but solid and remote into this fantastically miniaturised, energised work.”
A goldsmith as well as a sculptor, Antico “turned a monumental work into an exquisite treasure, something that could be taken off the shelf and handled – an intensely precious object”, Syson said.
The artist took the name Antico as a “way of saying ‘the pieces I’m making are of my day – but they’re also about deep indebtedness to the ancient world’. He was bringing the past to life in a way that was extraordinarily vivid,” said Syson.
The figure was once part of a collection of Renaissance and baroque bronzes amassed by Lt Col Mildmay Thomas Boscawen, who died in 1958. His sister later bequeathed the collection to the Fitzwilliam. Antico’s Apollo will now rejoin 56 other Boscawen bronzes at the museum.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the arts and heritage minister, said: “I am delighted that the [AiL] scheme has allowed the Fitzwilliam Museum to acquire this superb Antico bronze. It will further enhance the Fitzwilliam’s fine collection of Renaissance art.”
