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| Keywords: Francesco Bertos - Allegorical Groups Representing the Four Continents - America - Walters 54657.jpg Very little is known about Francesco Bertos a highly original artist who created a considerable number of complicated pyramidal groups in a very distinctive ingenious style that mirrors the lightness and airiness of contemporary rococo painting in France These four groups Walters 54 659 54 657 54 660 and 54 658 are allegories symbolic representations of the four continents of which the world was then thought to consist All have their names engraved In the allegory of America the fierce and primitive nature of the New World is represented by the semi-nude female Native American warrior wearing feathers who has shot an opponent with an arrow She supports a man who stands on an alligator that looks strangely like a lizard The gruesome detail of the little boy lifting a decapitated head on a spear refers to European assumptions about the practice of cannibalism in America ca 1710 1725 bronze cm 68 4 accession number 54 657 2145 Spiradon Paris Jacques Seligmann and Co Inc New York Sale February 17 1917 Henry Walters city Baltimore Walters Art Museum Henry Walters Acquired by Henry Walters 1917 place of origin Padua Italy Walters Art Museum license Baroque sculpture in the Walters Art Museum Francesco Bertos Media contributed by the Walters Art Museum needs category review | ||||
