The Triumph of Julius Caesar

This splendid Triumph of Julius Caesar was first published by Tancred Borenius as a work by Francesco di Giorgio, one of the key artistic personalities in fifteenth-century Siena. A true Renaissance man, he was a painter, architect, engineer, writer and diplomat, and his career took him beyond Tuscany to other major cities like Milan, Naples and Urbino, where he worked at the court of Duke Federico da Montefeltro. A number of examples of the cassoni produced by the artist and his workshop in the 1460s and 1470s can be found in museums across the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Comparable architectural structures to the present lot, in their use of perspective and in their classical design, can be found in panels such as The Death of Virginia, sold in these Rooms, 8 December 2015, lot 16. Francesco di Giorgio worked closely with Neroccio de’ Landi and Liberale da Verona, and the extent of their collaboration has added to the debate surrounding the relatively small corpus of works given to the artist and his circle.

The narrative scene that unfolds here shows The Triumph of Julius Caesar. Showing the triumphs of Roman emperors not only provided suitable subject matter for the decoration of cassoni but it also revived an ancient Roman tradition of depicting triumphant victories, which would reach its greatest expression during the Renaissance in Mantegna’s Triumphs (Royal Collection). It is interesting to note in this panel, which was once owned by Lady Henry Somerset, a significant campaigner for women’s rights, that the architectural backdrop does not feature Roman monuments or ruins, as in other examples of this subject, such as that by Apollonio di Giovanni, sold Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 2021, lot 13; instead it summons the idea of a city further afield, such as Carthage, which was rebuilt under Julius Caesar.