Winter?

Terracotta; 92x30x30 cm This important sculpture represents a standing old man, with a long beard and a youthful torso. He is wrapped in classical-style drapery, perhaps a fur, which leaves his chest uncovered. Following traditional iconography we could imagine it as an allegory of winter but, as there are no other distinctive signs (such as a bonfire or a foot warmer) the identification is uncertain. It could be a sketch for a sculpture to be made, later, in marble. It could also, given its considerable size, be a definitive work to be placed in a niche or in a nymphaeum. The definition of the bearded face and feet appears complete and therefore usable at a close distance. The production area almost certainly seems to be Venetian, if we compare our "old man" to certain bearded figures by Orazio Marinali (Angarano, Vicenza, 1643- Vicenza, 1720) or by Giovanni Bonazza (Venice, 1654- Padua, 1739) or their school. Bibl. Davide Banzato, Franca Pellegrini and Monica De Vincenti, From the Middle Ages to Canova - Sculptures of the Civic Museums of Padua from the Fourteenth to the Nineteenth Century, Marsilio, Venice, 2000, pp. 64-65, 156.