Description
This classical subject tells the cautionary tale of the sculptor Perillus, who offered to make a bronze bull in which the tyrant Phalaris could roast his enemies. Perillus was rewarded by being the contraption’s first victim. In the Renaissance this story was interpreted as a moral fable of how bad advice rebounds on the giver, and it is here presented against the backdrop of a large, contemporary piazza. The relief is attributed to Giovanni Caccini on the basis of its stylistic relationship to his best-known work, the bronze panes of the doors of Pisa Cathedral.
Provenance
Artibus, Geneva, before 1968 [according to Commission Book, 1968–69, Heim Gallery Records, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, copy in curatorial file]; Heim Gallery, London, by 1968; sold to the Art Institute, 1968.
Accession Number
29431
Medium
Terracotta with traces of polychromy
Dimensions
68.6 × 87.6 cm (27 × 34 1/2 in.)
Classification
relief
Credit Line
Kate S. Buckingham Endowment