Laurana, Francesco

Laurana, Francesco

“Eleonora of Aragon,” portrait bust by Francesco Laurana; in the National …

(credit: Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

(born c. 1430, Vrana, Dalmatia, republic of Venice—died before March 12, 1502, Avignon, Fr.) Italian sculptor and medalist. His early life is obscure. In 1453 he was commissioned to work on the Castel Nuovo in Naples. From 1461 to 1466 he was in Provence at the court of the duke of Anjou, for whom he executed a series of medals. His other documented works include Madonnas and bas-reliefs in Italy (chiefly Sicily and Naples) and France, as well as tombs and architectural sculptures in France. He is best known for his portrait busts of women, characterized by serene, detached dignity and aristocratic elegance.

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Laurana, Francesco 

(properly, Franjo from Vrana, or Franjo Vranjanin). Born circa 1430, in Zadar or Vrana, near Zadar, Croatia; died 1502, in Avignon (?). Italian early Renaissance sculptor.

Laurana left Dalmatia and worked in Naples, Sicily, and France. He executed multifigured reliefs for the triumphal gate of the Castel Nuovo in Naples (c. 1452–58, with others) for Alfonso of Aragon. He created portrait medals in the spirit of Pisanello for King René of Anjou (1461–66) and the sculptured decor of the St. Lazare Chapel in the Old Cathedral in Marseille (1475–81). Laurana also executed marble portrait busts of the princesses of the Aragon dynasty; the keenly captured individual features, generalized modeling, and elegant lines suggest the sculptor’s possible acquaintance with the work of Desiderio da Settignano and Antonio Rossellino.

REFERENCES

Burger, F. Franz Laurana. Strasbourg, 1907.