Daniel Katz is arguably the most important connoisseur dealing in sculpture in Europe. Although Katz is versatile enough to cover the entire history of sculpture as the current exhibition clearly demonstrates, his name is synonymous with Renaissance bronzes, perhaps the most elite category for collectors of European sculpture. Who can forget the superb exhibition hosted by Katz last year in his Jermyn Street gallery of Renaissance bronzes from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford? Katz himself is responsible for several important discoveries in this field and on show from the 12th June 2000 in London you can see a superb 'Hercules' by an unknown early 16th or 17th century Italian sculptor. It is an exciting addition to a group of works in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge that remain unattributed. Scholars will one day hopefully name the creator of these minutely detailed statuettes. From the sixteenth century Katz has chosen a bronze group of 'Hercules and Antaeus' by Willem Danielsz, van Tetrode. The only known version it is remarkable for the originality of its composition which pre-dates Giambologna's famous group. A bronze 'Warrior' that re-invents classical antiquity seems typically Florentine but is unusual for being by the French sculptor Barthelemy Prieur. Just as such small bronzes were highly collectible in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by patrons like the Medici, they remain today  much sort after. No doubt American collectors will be calling into the new Katz gallery at 19 East 66th Street, New York in search of the perfect bronze for the modern day 'studiolo'.
 
 

The catalogue accompanying "European Sculpture" is a collector's item in itself. Beautifully illustrated with meticulous entries by Johannes Auersperg and Katherine Zock it shows all fifty-six works in the exhibition which span a period from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. The 1800's was a very active period for sculptors in Europe and Katz has included two works by Canova: an elegant marble bust of 'Sappho' and a life-size pair of 'Female Dancers'. Antoine-Louis Barye's important plaster model of The General Bonaparte on Horseback commemorates an incident in 1815 following the General's return from Elba.

Everyone that visits 'European Sculpture' will come away with the image in mind of a particular sculpture which appealed above all others. It may be the technical virtuosity of Guiliano Finelli (1601-1653) that impresses in his portrait of a beautiful young noblewoman Isabella Celsi de Capranica or the whimsical expressions on three Chaucer-like English wood carvings, 'A Warrior, A Nobleman and A Page'.  For me the eloquence of a small ivory relief stands out not only for the beauty of Saint Sebastian's limp, tortured body but for the delicate tones rendered by age upon this rare material. It is the perfect combination of a distinctive work of art and a covetable object. 
 
 

Daniel Katz
59 Jermyn st.
London SW1Y 6LX 
info@katz.co.uk

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