2-913-914 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Renaissance Court, at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, 1854. Exhibition in south London. 'Mr. Delamotte, by aid of photography, has drawn for our Engraver a portion of the elaborate beauty of this Court...Part of the Arcade, and one of the enriched door ways, are shown. The principal object upon the floor is one of the bronze wells from the courtyard of the Ducal Palace at Venice - an excellent specimen of the perfection at which bronze casting had arrived in the sixteenth century...This well is the work, says Cicognara, of a certain "Nicholas conflator tormentorum" or military engine maker...[Made in 1556]...This massive well, which has been arranged as a fountain basin, is surmounted by the statue of a bronze Cupid with a dolphin taken from the court yard of the Palazzo Vecchio, at Florence. It was executed by Andrea del Verocchio, the celebrated Florentine artist'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.