Why the Quentin Collection is ‘the most important collection of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture ever to come on the market’

The Argentine collector Claudia Quentin, well-respected throughout the world as a generous benefactor of art institutions and an astute collector of bronzes, has spent the past 40 years building what Christie’s Head of Sculpture, Will Russell, calls ‘the most important collection of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture ever to come on the market’.

On 30 January 2024, the first part of The Quentin Collection: Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture will be offered at Christie’s in New York. The second part will be offered at Christie’s in Paris in June 2024.

‘Art is in my blood,’ Quentin told Christie’s. ‘My grandfather Alfredo Hirsch was an important and eclectic collector in Buenos Aires, as was my mother’s brother Mario. My paternal grandmother, Maria Carmen Portela, was a well-known sculptor who was part of the modern movement in Argentina in the late thirties.’ Quentin recalls that as a child, looking with her grandfather at his collection, she was always more drawn to sculpture than to painting. Little did she know then that sculpture would become one of the greatest interests in her life.

While Quentin initially built her collection for private study, she has repeatedly loaned works to important public exhibitions at the world’s premier institutions such as The Frick Collection, which in 2004 and 2005 featured the ground-breaking European Bronzes from the Quentin Collection. A portion of the collection was also loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2017 until 2021.

Spanning 250 years of European sculpture, Quentin’s collection of bronze and terracotta works includes some of the best efforts of the most famous masters of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture: the school of Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Bandini, and those connected to the Medici court, Adriaen de Vries, Giambologna, Antonio Susini and Willem Danielsz van Tetrode.

As Christie’s Head of Sculpture, Will Russell, says, ‘Quentin's collection features some of the finest examples by artists who are synonymous with Italy's cultural patrimony. It's rare to have the opportunity to view original models by these artists outside of museums — it's even rarer to have the chance to bid on them.’

Many of these works are completely new to market. Moreover, Russell explains, a single sculpture of their calibre usually comes on the secondary market once every few years: ‘Yet suddenly, here are 15 at once — this is an unbelievable moment for European bronze and sculpture collectors.’

The collection is peerless in its rarity. Carlo di Cesare del Palagio’s Venus Withholding a Heart from Cupid, for example, has no other version. For those that do have multiples, Russell notes that many of the bronzes are ‘among the best models of their types’. The counterparts that have made these models so familiar are very often copies of these objects. Mars, for example, is perhaps ‘the best model of its type that we know’, says Russell. It was cast in Giambologna’s lifetime by his assistant Zanobi Portigiani, setting it apart from the multiples scattered around the world.’

Since originals have the sharpest detail, the intricacy is superlative. From the veins on his neck to his tiny fingernails, Mars exhibits exquisitely fine details that other multiples lack.

Quentin explains, ‘There is no after-work, everything is modelled in the wax, which gives it its immediacy and freshness. The after-worked Susini models do not have details in the wax, so they seem more static. Once one has seen this Mars, one can never forget it.’

Another unforgettable example, Trotting Horse, is an exceptionally observant anatomical depiction of a horse. Its musculature and movement are represented far more accurately than most other animal sculpture made before that point in history.

‘This horse is very close to Leonardo da Vinci’s observation of the movement of a horse,’ Quentin says. ‘As he illustrated in his drawings, Leonardo was the only artist who truly understood the motion of a horse. No other artist succeeded in accurately representing the nuances of its movement.’ The best example of this is the uneven height of the back hips — one is higher than the other, just as in a real horse when it walks and the weight shifts.

Trotting Horse’s closeness to these drawings makes it clear that the sculptor was in the circle of Leonardo, with a deep understanding of the polymath’s budding theories and work.

The collection is filled with an impressive selection for seasoned Renaissance and Baroque sculpture collectors. Take Bandini’s Mars (from the pair Mars & Vulcan), for instance — the sculpture may look like bronze, but it is in fact terracotta, coated and painted with a rare surface feature to disguise it as metal. Given the fragility of terracotta and the sculpture’s relatively large size, it’s especially impressive that these 16th-century works have survived.

Another notable terracotta piece is Tetrode’s Hercules. Tetrode specialised in making bronze statuettes after ancient sculptures. This work — inspired by a colossal Classical marble Hercules in Rome — is the only terracotta attributed to the Dutch artist. When Quentin loaned it to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it became the face for the landmark sculpture exhibition Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body — and could be seen all over the city, from city buses to the museum’s façade.

‘Tetrode’s profile has risen significantly over the past two decades as more works have been attributed to him, so he’s a hot ticket right now in the sculpture world,’ says Russell. ‘Everyone wants a Tetrode.’

The Quentin collection is filled with clever nods to the seasoned collector of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture — but the appeal of these works by generations of Renaissance and Baroque master sculptors is universal. This is a significant moment for all of us in the art world.