Sculpture of the Day: A Bronze Sculpture of Aesculapius, c. 1600

Aesculapius
Francesco Fanelli, 1600-1650
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The famed Italian sculptor Francesco Fanelli created this bronze statuette of Aesculapius (also spelled Asclepius or, in Britain, Asklepius)  between 1600-1650, possibly while in Florence. Aesculapius was the ancient Greek God of medicine and healing and the son of Apollo and Coronis. His artistic attribute is a staff with an intertwined snake, the rod of Aesculapius--which is still a symbol of medicine today.

 Though he was prolific, we don’t know much about the life of Francesco Fanelli (b: about 1577 - last documented in London c. 1641). Fanelli was first recorded in Genoa in 1608, and presumably stayed there until about 1631.  There, he produced religious works in marble, silver, ivory and bronze.

By 1635, somehow, Fanelli was in Britain, working at the English court.   He referred to himself  as the “sculptor to the King of Great Britain,” but, it is unclear if this title was officially conferred or if it’s just something he liked to call himself.

The V&A owns several bronzes which were attributed in the Seventeenth Century to “Francisco, the one-eyed Italian”  as listed in an inventory of Whitehall Palace in 1639.  Okay.  Why did he have one eye?  Was this the same man?  We’ll never know.  But, the works do, in fact, look like the style of Fanelli who relied on detailed musculature and fluidity of pose to make his creations seem more alive. 

When this figure was originally collected by the V&A, he was outfitted with a fig leaf which was meant to prevent our Victorian forebears from accidentally spying anything scandalous.  That has since been removed since people are slow to scandalize these days.