Model for a Fallen Warrior (c. 1520): Art, History and Details

Model for a Fallen Warrior (c. 1520) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni Francesco Rustici (Italian, 1474–1554).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), an influential writer and painter, notes in his biography of his contemporary Rustici, that the artist sculpted terracotta battle scenes of groups of horses "with men on their backs or under them." This wax model may be a study for such a group, showing a contorted, helmeted warrior bracing himself after falling to the ground. The figures for these projects were most likely inspired by those in Leonardo's monumental wall painting depicting the Battle of Anghiari for the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Although the fresco was never completed, its pictorial scheme was well known. Rustici later collaborated with Leonardo, and was undoubtedly aware of the major commission and its dynamic portrayal of war.

Object facts

• Title: Model for a Fallen Warrior
• Date: c. 1520
• Creator attribution: Giovanni Francesco Rustici (Italian, 1474–1554)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: wax on a metal armature, mounted on wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.2 x 14.2 cm (8 3/4 x 5 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1963.576

A detail from the museum

Sixteenth-century sculptors often sketched their ideas in three dimensions using wax, clay, or stucco.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mozzati, Tommaso. Giovanfrancesco Rustici: le Compagnie del paiuolo e della cazzuola ; arte, letteratura, festa nell'età della maniera. [Florence, Italy]: L.S. Olschki, 2008.
• Sénéchal, Philippe, and Marco Collareta. Giovan Francesco Rustici, 1475-1554: un sculpteur de la Renaissance entre Florence et Paris. Paris: Arthena, 2007.
• Wixom, William D. A Wax Bozzetto Close to Leonardo Da Vinci. The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, April, 1971.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.