BERTOS, Francesco

Francesco Bertos created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive, ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary Rococo painting in France. Four groups in the Walters Art Museum are allegories of the four continents, of which the world was then thought to consist. All have their names engraved.

In the allegory of Africa, the continent is depicted by people who, in a simple, peaceful way of life, gather grain from the fertile ground. A lion and a snake indicate the African continent.

Francesco Bertos created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive, ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary Rococo painting in France. Four groups in the Walters Art Museum are allegories of the four continents, of which the world was then thought to consist. All have their names engraved.

In the allegory of America, the fierce and primitive nature of the New World is represented by the semi-nude female Native American warrior wearing feathers, who has shot an opponent with an arrow. She supports a man who stands on an alligator that looks strangely like a lizard. The gruesome detail of the little boy lifting a decapitated head on a spear refers to European assumptions about the practice of cannibalism in America.

Francesco Bertos created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive, ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary Rococo painting in France. Four groups in the Walters Art Museum are allegories of the four continents, of which the world was then thought to consist. All have their names engraved.

In the allegory of Asia, an older man carries a beautiful young woman and figures in dance-like movements surround them. They hold pieces of coral, plants, and spices. This limited view of a vast continent contrasts markedly with the complexity of the representation of America.

Francesco Bertos created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive, ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary Rococo painting in France. Four groups in the Walters Art Museum are allegories of the four continents, of which the world was then thought to consist. All have their names engraved.

In the allegory of Europe, Jupiter, the king of the gods in Greco-Roman mythology, crowns Bellona, the goddess of war. Jupiter’s eagle rest on objects used in war: canon, shield, and drum. Europe is thereby represented as being the leader of the world through her military prowess. The figure of Religion on the ground reveals that the Christian faith is the source of Europe’s superior position.

This complex allegorical group shows a rearing unicorn supporting a winged female nude, probably representing Victory, who holds out a crown of laurel above the head of a seated male figure wearing a lion’s skin (possibly Hercules/Valour) and holding a serpent in his left hand, and a female figure with a cornucopia (or horn of plenty) of jewels seated on an altar or plinth. A group is ranged around the altar: a female figure holding a mirror (probably Prudence), a male warrior with the head of a Turk or Tartar on a spike, another female holding ears of corn and a cornucopia (possibly Abundance) and a putto or child holding a ring, possibly a magnifying glass.

This is one of a number of related groups of allegorical subjects, some signed, in the artist’s immediately recognisable and idiosyncratic style. Although he also worked in marble, his compositions were more suited to bronze.

The composition recalls the “serpentine” figures created by Giambologna and continued by his workshop until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Several marble works by Bertos are known in the Royal Palace of Turin. The allegorical groups in marble are much simpler than those made in bronze. The models are less stylised and do not carry the multitude of allegorical elements that figures in bronze.

Images of saints are rare in the artist’s oeuvre. He is best remembered for bronze and marble groups of figures piled one atop the other in pyramids that suggest acrobatic exercises.The technical virtuosity required to undercut so many components in marble or to attach a cluster of elevated figures in bronze pleased patrons who sought novelty and variety.

The two figures shown here are designed as complementary, turning toward one another. The little cherubs, with their dancing posture are the kind of youth the sculptor repeatedly chose for his multifigured groups.