Joseph de Levis applied his distinctive signature (between 1577 and 1605) to a whole range of fantastic, Mannerist, bronze artefacts, some 45 in all. They range from large church-bells-some
still in situ-and miniature table-bells, to mortars, inkstands, perfume-burners, door-knockers, firedogs, statuettes, and even a portrait-bust. Joseph’s sons and nephews continued the family
business into the seventeenth century, signing a similar range of artefacts in an early Baroque style. This book provides a unique cross-section of the production of a hard-working and
resilient renaissance foundry. Frequently inscriptions and coats-of-arms specify his wide-ranging clientèle, from civic and church authorities, to guilds and confraternities (all-important in
society at the time), nobility, merchants and connoisseur-collectors. Bronzes by the De Levis dynasty are now dispersed among museums in Europe, the USA and Israel, and in Old Master
collections, notably that of the late Robert H. Smith, whose foundation purchased in 2002 the eye-catching Ewer from the Salomon de Rothschild Foundation in Paris for £276,000. This well
illustrated catalogue raisonné is important both art-historically and from the perspective of the Jewish Diaspora in Renaissance Italy.
