Plaster Casts

The bulk of the collection consists of casts from the most outstanding sculptures of classical antiquity: reliefs with scenes of horsemen from the frieze of the Parthenon (mid-5th century BC); exceptional pieces such as the Doriphor and the Diadum, both Roman replicas of Greek models made by Policleto in the second half of the fifth century BC. C.; Or Apoxiomeno, Roman copy of a Greek bronze of 4th century BC performed by Lisipo; also, we can’t forget the impressive Hellenistic pieces of Venus de Milo and Torso Belvedere.

As part of the Roman period, it is worth to emphasize the portraiture, represented here with busts of the emperors Octavio Augusto and Marcus Aurelius, as well as those of other prominent figures of the republican and imperial periods, such as the portrait of Scipio “the African”, winner of Carthaginian Anibal at the Battle of Zama (202 BC), or the idealized image of Antinous, Emperor Hadrian’s lover, who did not hesitate to immolate himself by throwing himself on the Nile to favor good omens towards his protector.

We can find also a very interesting piece: a plaster that reproduces the clue that presides over the vault of the transept of the Seville Cathedral, that following the opinion of Professor Juan Clemente Rodríguez Estévez, it would be a design by Juan Gil de Hontañón between 1514 and 1517, after the collapse of the transept in 1511.

The Italian Renaissance is also present with some casts based on the reliefs of the Cantoria of the Florence Cathedral made by Lucca of the Robbia, one of the most sophisticated sculptures of the Italian Quattrocento. There are also two representations of Michelangelo’s artworks: the head of the dying slave, originally thought to be part of the funeral tomb of Pope Julius II and the Virgin of Bruges, created immediately after the Vatican Pietà.

From the Spanish Renaissance period, an impressive full body sculpture of the Emperor Charles V stands out. It was carried out by the Milanese atelier of the Leoni around 1549. Other outstanding pieces correspond to Donatello’s Saint George, in the moment before confronting the dragon, and the busts of Ippolita Maria Sforza and Leonor de Aragón of sculptor Francisco Laurana.

Special interest deserves those pieces made from carvings of sculptures located in Seville. At the cathedral transept, again, we can find also the bust of San Fulgencio, original sculpture by Lorenzo Mercadante of Brittany.

In this same line, there is an athlete’s torso from Italica, an acephalic portrait of Servilia from the archeological site of Carmona, the relief of the Charity, plaster cast of the original marble in the facade of the Church of the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas, and whose author was Juan Bautista Vázquez el Viejo.  Also, two masks made from two polychrome wood sculptures by Juan Martínez Montañés that belong to Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán and María Alonso Coronel, founders of the nobiliary house of Medina Sidonia and the Monastery of San Isidoro del Campo in Santiponce.

Finally, we can not forget the monumentalism of Perez Comendador, represented here by his work of Alfonso X called the Wise.

Text extracted from the one made by Joaquín Voltes for the Heritage website of the University of Seville.