Putto with Dolphin

Andrea del Verrocchio, Giuseppe Lelli (cast maker)

No image available

Artist
Andrea del Verrocchio
Firenze, 1435 – Velence, 1488

Giuseppe Lelli
(cast maker)
Firenze
Dated
ca. 1470 (original), 1907 (cast)
Medium
plaster cast
Dimensions
49.5 × 46 × 25 cm
Inv.no.
Rg.226
Department
Sculptures - Plaster casts
Current Location of the Original Artwork
Italy, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio

Verrocchio made the bronze Putto with a Dolphin figure for a fountain for the Medici Villa at Careggi around 1470. Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) in 1557–8 designed a new fountain for the Villa, and most probably at this date the bronze Putto was transported to Florence and placed in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1959 the bronze in the courtyard was replaced by a copy, the original being exhibited inside the building. The plaster cast was ordered by the Museum in 1907 from the Florentine cast maker Giuseppe Lelli, and was exhibited in the Museum’s Renaissance Hall circa 1908. In 1977, the copy was transferred to the Sándor Petőfi Community Centre, Madaras (village near Szekszárd, Hungary). The current whereabouts of the artwork are unknown.