17. The Flagellation of Christ

This dynamic group is an important early example of the finely chased silver and gilt flagellation groups produced in Rome throughout the 17th century. Over the centuries these works have been admired by connoisseurs for their compositional balance, sculptural plasticity and the ‘Baroque’ dynamism the figures.

There is a gilt version of this exact arrangement in the Collection of the Ciechanowiecki Foundation at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, attributed to the so-called 'Ciechanowiecki Master'. Due to the startling similarity between these two works, it is likely that the artist who produced the present example was associated with the same 'Ciechanowiecki Master' who was probably working in Rome in the early seventeenth century. In addition, the similarity of the material, form, style and compositional arrangement of the 'Ciechanowiecki’ type, and the silver and gilt flagellation groups attributed to Alessandro Algardi (1598 -1654) and Francois Duquesnoy (1597 – 1643), appears to provide strong visual evidence of a transmission of ideas between these versions. However, it is difficult to confidently establish whether the 'Ciechanowiecki’ type existed as the prototype for, or was indeed inspired by, the arrangements of Algardi and Duquesnoy without secure dates for the 'Ciechanowiecki Master'.