Mythical Creature, Striding

In the first third of the sixteenth century, it was Severo Calzetta from Ravenna, called Severo da Ravenna, who was the most productive maker of small bronzes in eastern Northern Italy after Andrea Riccio. Similarly active in Padua, he chiefly represented fantastical subject matter such as sea monsters, tritons or mythical creatures. Most of his small figures had some sort of functional use, for example as oil-lamps or candlesticks. The splendid striding creature in the Berlin collection, which has at times been described as a sphinx or chimera, is holding in its right hand a natural cast of a sea snail, intended to hold ink. In his left, the hybrid creature probably originally held a holder for a candle.