ATTRIBUTED TO BERNARDO FALCONE (ITALIAN OR SWISS 1620-1697)

ATTRIBUTED TO BERNARDO FALCONE (ITALIAN OR SWISS 1620-1697) A WHITE MARBLE PORTRAIT BUST OF A YOUNG BOY LATE 17TH OR EARLY 18TH CENTURY Possibly a portrait of the young Dionysus or a young evangelist, later black marble socle the bust 33cm high, 40cm high overall, the base 13cm wide Provenance: Christie's London, Important English Furniture, 16 December 1999, lot 2- catalogued as A French white marble bust of Bacchus, Late 17th early 18th Century (£11,500)Literature: A. Bacchi, La Scultura a Venezia da Sansovino a Canova , Milan, 2000, nos.370-373; S. Guerriero, 'The alternating fortunes of marbles: busts, character heads and other modern sculptures in Venetian collections between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,' in G. Pavanello (ed.), Venetian sculpture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nuovi Studi, Venice, 2002, fig. 48, p. 125 This bust bears a close stylistic affinity with a number of Bernardo Falcone's works. The chiselled hair with curling locks resembles that seen on a putto in La Carità in the Frari in Venice, whilst the treatment of the eyes and lips is close to that seen in his bust of Carlo Emanuele II Duke of Savoy as Apollo in Castello di Rivoli, near Turin.