Videos of Hyman Edelman speaking to colleagues at Maslon, Edelman, Borman & Brand about his work in the Ugolino Bas Relief case.

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Hy Edelman's Discovery of a "Lost" Bas Relief by Pierino da Vinci -- The Death of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca

In 1956, the Minneapolis Art Institute contracted to buy a bas relief believing it to be the work of Pierino Da Vinci (c. 1531-1554), a nephew of Leonardo. http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/pierino_da_vinci.html After making a down payment and taking possession, the Institute concluded the relief was not actually the work of Pierino and attempted to rescind the purchase. The seller, a man named Kratzer, sued for the outstanding balance. The Institute hired my father, Minneapolis attorney Hy Edelman.

The relief purchased by the Institute, carved in marble, depicted the death by starvation of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, a 13th century nobleman in Pisa. Ugolino was imprisoned with his sons in 1288 in what became known as the "Tower of Hunger" where they all died. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/U/Ugolinod.asp. Ugolino's tribulations were described in gruesome detail a few years later by Dante in Canto XXXIII of his Inferno. http://www.italianstudies.org/comedy/Inferno33.htm. According to reports in the London Daily Telegraph, what were believed to be Ugolino's bones were exhumed in 2001 in an effort to determine the truth of the story. Google: "Ugolino" "bones".

Pierino was a contemporary of Giorgio Vasari, the leading art historian of the day, who described the work of Pierino in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550). http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/giorgio.vasari/vaspref.htm Vasari mentioned a bronze relief of Count Ugolino but said nothing about any version in marble. There were three known copies in white stucco-including one at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London-each with identical nicks which suggested a common source. Yet there was, in the 1950s, no known Ugolino relief in bronze.

Hy learned from taking Mr. Kratzer's deposition that he had purchased the marble relief in 1951 for $112 from a small-time art dealer in Genoa, Senora Alberti, and that he later got permission from the Italian authorities to remove the relief from Italy, stating its value to be $112-the amount he paid Senora Alberti. Certain that the Italian authorities would not knowingly have allowed the export of genuine work of Pierino, the Institute sent Hy to Italy in 1958 to try to learn more about Mr. Kratzer's purchase of the relief from Senora Alberti and the decision by the Italian authorities to permit its removal.

Hy quickly secured helpful information. Senora Alberti related that her late husband had told her the marble relief was made during the 19th century and that she so informed Mr. Kratzer. The Italian officials who approved the export permit said they knew Pierino had not created a marble Ugolino and therefore assumed Kratzer's item was not the work of Pierino.

Hy came to believe he could prove that the marble relief was not Pierino's work by finding the hitherto unknown bronze described by Vasari. He enlisted the help of two of the greatest Italian art scholars of the day, John Pope Hennessy, http://www.granta.com/authors/1701, and Ulrich Middledorf of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, http://www.metmuseum.org/specil/Leonardo_Master_Draftsman, (see bibliography). As he describes in his talk, Hy succeeded remarkably, at least in part.

Hy's theory was that the relief had been commissioned during the 16th century by descendants of Ugolino and thereafter kept under wraps by the della Gherardesca family. With help from Professor Middledorf's secretary, Hy located present-day members of the della Gherardesca family who lived in the vicinity of Florence. A well-placed telephone call produced information that the Ugolino relief was at the Palazzo della Gherardesca-still in the family's hands after several centuries-in Bolgheri, southwest of Florence near the Mediterranean coast.

Three days later Hy, his wife Edith and Professor Middledorf drove to Palazzo della Gherardesca. In the art room of the Palazzo, they found what Professor Middledorf declared to be the genuine work of Pierino. However, the relief, which was reddish-brown in color, was terra cotta rather than bronze as described by Vasari.
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/t/terracotta.html

Professor Middledorf observed that the relief at the palazzo had a nick identical to the nicks on the white stucco versions in the three museums. He soon found an account, dating from the year 1795, of the casting of stucco copies of the Ugolino relief by what was described as the "Sienna process" from a terra cotta original. According to Dr. Middledorf, the terra cotta original was nicked on being removed from its frame thereby accounting for the identical nicks on the stucco copies.

Nevertheless, Hy's work may not be the last word. Dr. Charles Avery, formerly of London's Victoria & Albert Museum, recently described finding what he believes to be the lost bronze relief at Chatsworth in 1980. See Charles Avery, Studies in Italian Sculpture (Pindar Press 2001), which includes a chapter titled: "Pierino da Vinci's 'Lost' Bronze Relief of The Death by Starvation of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Sons rediscovered at Chatsworth." http://www.pindarpress.co.uk/catalogue/early italian/avery sculpture.html. Chatsworth, in Derbyshire in the UK, is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. http://www.chatsworth house.co.uk. Mr. Avery's chapter notes that the della Gherardesca family's terra cotta version, which Hy found, was displayed in Florence in 1960. Studies in Italian Sculpture at ___. In response to my written inquiry, Mr. Avery stated his belief that the bronze at Chatsworth is authentic work of Pierino. He noted though that he could not reach a firm conclusion without examining the back of the relief and that Andrew Devonshire, the late 11th Duke of Devonshire, refused to allow the relief to be removed from the wall.

I recently had the opportunity to see the Victoria & Albert Museum's stucco copy as well as a handwritten entry in the Museum's catalog noting the Museum's acquisition of the stucco copy in 1862. I deeply appreciate the kindness of Fergus Cannan of the Museum's curatorial staff in making the stucco copy and museum catalog available for viewing.

The stucco copy bore the telltale nick suggesting it was cast from the terra cotta as Dr. Middledorf surmised. The original entry in the Victoria & Albert catalog stated that an original "bronze" was in "a collection" in Florence. However, a 1974 notation struck out the word "bronze" and inserted "terra cotta". The notation also struck out the words "a collection in Florence" and substituted "the collection of Count Welfredo della Gherardesca". The 1974 notation thus implicitly acknowledged Hy's contribution in bringing the terra cotta to light.

Daniel B. Edelman

August 30, 2004