Chapter 11 Models for Sculptures in Print: Michelangelo’s Samson and Two Philistines in Lucas Kilian’s Engravings
In: Sculpture in Print, 1480–1600Search for other papers by Claudia Echinger-Maurach in
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Abstract
Though models for sculptures start to be collected during the sixteenth century, prints after them are extremely rare. The models for the companion sculpture to the David on the Piazza della Signoria by Bandinelli and Michelangelo have been regarded as so singular inventions, that both have been reproduced in prints. Michelangelo’s lost group of “Samson and two Philistines” has been engraved by Lukas Kilian around 1600 from three different angles like Andreani’s woodcuts after Giambologna’s “Rape of a Sabine woman” and Jan Muller’s prints after de Vries’s “Mercury and Psyche”, dependent on Michelangelo’s invention. It is still an open question if Kilian followed Michelangelo’s model or a bronze cast or if the prototype had to be remodelled. Interesting is the comparison with Agostino’s much earlier print “alla veneziana” of Bandinelli’s “Hercules and Cacus”. Obviously, Kilian’s prints were produced for a northern public interested in Michelangelo’s highly innovative “figura serpentinata”.