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[beginning of page 2 of 2] The Incense Burner underlined: attributed to Riccio. (Catalogue No. 85).

This bronze has nothing to do with Riccio, for it is of a date about 1580, or nearly 50 years after the death of Riccio, which occurred in 1532. The reasons are as follows:- In the first place the paste is wrong, for it containes zinc which was never used by Riccio at all, and was not used in Venice before 1560 or after, and this bronze is Venetian and never saw Padua. Every Paduan bronze in existence before the death of Riccio, and long after, has a red paste, a proportion of tin only, never more than 10 per cent, being used as an alloy. Then the bronze is lacquered, and no Paduan bronze was ever lacquered. Morever the lacquer used is of a kind that was invented in the workshop of Giovanni di Bologna, which was not in existence till many years after the death of Riccio. Further a rough ground is used, and this was never adopted before 1570, and was only used to cover the hasty work of decadent bronze workers who would not go through the long and tedious process of forming a proper mould for cire perdu casts. Then again the accessories are all wrong, for Riccio never departed from Donatello, who in his turn took all his accessories from the Greek, so that there can be no mistake in judging them. The note at the end of the description in the Catalogue is a pure invention. Riccio was not born till 4 years after the death of Donatello, so he could not very well have assisted him in Padua; while the only Duke of Mantua who was interested in the arts, was not born when Donatello was working at the church of St. Anthony. The only Gonzaga for whom the bronze could have been made, was Francesco's successor, the Cardinal Ercole, who died in 1587. [end of document]