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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION & SCIENCE
VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM
South Kensington, London, S.W. 7   
Telephone: 01-589 6371

Telegrams:
VICALEUM
LONDON S.W. 7

6th December, 1972.

Reference:

Mr. Germain Seligman,
Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc.,
5 East 57th Street,
New York, N.Y. 10022.

Dear Mr. Seligmann,

It was a great pleasure to me to receive your letter. I am so often being accused of being somewhat negative in my approach to Renaissance bronzes (meaning that I frequently refuse to concur in the business of pigeon-holing for the sale-rooms) that it is a pleasure to be in correspondence with someone who appreciates what is actually involved in the real study of bronzes.

I agree completely with your remarks about Bode and Planiscig. In the case of Bode it is a fascinating exercise to trace through the Berlin bronze catalogues from his first one of 1888 to the final posthumous edition of 1930 the way in which his judgments became increasingly more subtle as he left the pioneering phase of his work behind. And Planiscig, of course, was never afraid to change his mind. I am sorry to say that it seems to me to be the tendency of the younger generation today to underestimate grossly the contribution of Bode and Planiscig. Speaking for myself, I have the greatest respect for them, as I tried to point out in an article on Riccio which I recently wrote for our Year Book. I believe that that is the way in which scholarship progresses, by a constant process of refinement.

I admit that my statement about the the aeolipile having more in common with Florentine bronzes than with Paduan was somewhat intransigeant. What I was trying to express was that the approach to surface which it shows seems to me to be totally un-Paduan, and more like that clarity of surface which one finds in Sansovino (unlike his Venetian followers) and Bandinelli, which I feel derives from the Florentine tradition of marble cutting. This is something which I should find impossible to substantiate. It is merely a feeling that I have. In any case, it is modelled and worked quite unlike a genuine Riccio. In terms of style it seems to me to be in the spirit of Florentine Mannerism. Looking at it again the other day it was impressed on me that it is a brilliantly designed object. The artist set himself a compositional problem of the greatest complexity and solved it so brilliantly that one is at first hardly aware of the problems. The transitions from one decorative feature to another are so fluently handled that they appear quite natural. I do hope that it eventually finds a good home.

With warmest good wishes,

Yours sincerely,
Anthony Radcliffe.
Anthony Radcliffe.