The lot is accompanied by the expertise by Davide Banzato, former Director of the Musei Civici di Padova, dated 30 September 2009 (an extract of which is reported below).

Like many other Renaissance bronzes inspired by classicism, this model was considered in the eighteenth century to be a creation of antiquity (B. de Montfaucon, "L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures", I-V, Paris 1719, V tav. 152) , but no specimens are known for which a direct derivation from the Greco-Roman world can be hypothesized. Works of this type were already considered by Bode, who examined the one then in the Trivulzio collection in Milan (Bode, "The Italian Bronze Statuettes of the Renaissance, Berlin 1907, New edition edited and revised by J.D. Draper, London 1980, pl. XLVII), casted by Andrea Briosco. Even Planiscig (L. Planiscig, "Andrea Riccio", Wien 1927, p. 182) took up the same opinion [...] The models of the bearded acrobats like this one, instead of being supported by a pedestal, are mostly designed to hang from a chain hooked to a ring fixed to one or both feet or to the head, as in this case.The present bronze corresponds to this model and is close to the specimen, formerly attributed to Riccio, from the Bargello National Museum in Florence (G. Mariacher, "Bronzetti veneti del Rinascimento", Vicenza 1971, fig. 79) and to the other similar one, owned by Lubin in New York, believed to be by a Paduan workshop of the first half of the sixteenth century.
Due to its immediacy of rendering and a certain ease in the final finish of the cast, this bronze can be considered a later recovery, made in Padua along the lines of prototypes by Briosco or by the workshop, in the central decades of the 16th century. [...] The physiognomic features of the face, with an arched nose and strong frontal bumps, the rendering of the mustache and beard present analogies with bronzes that are correctly given to Agostino Zoppo such as the "Telamoni" of the Stiftsmuseum of Klosterneuburg or " Saints Peter and Paul" of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Although a certain prudence must be maintained in the attribution, it should be noted that this could confirm the use and reworking by Zoppo and his workshop of models created by other artists.