Walking Stick - Primaticcio's Double Head

Elegant black lacquered wood walking stick featuring a reproduction of Francesco Primaticcio's Double Head sculpture for a handle.

- Length: 37 inches
- Diameter: 0.79 inches
- Materials: Lacquered beechwood shaft and bronze finished brass with gold-colored details
- Includes fabric storage pouch
- Made in Italy
- Not intended to be used as a medical device
- Item #: WS923OTAN

Made exclusively for the Getty by Walking Sticks, an artisan company that creates luxury accessories and objects for several uses, and leader in the production of walking sticks. With the passing of time, it has become a byword for quality thanks to the care for small particulars, to elegance and tradition, obtaining great results in the worldwide market. It has developed with its creativity a design aiming to satisfy all client requests, communicating taste and originality of the Made in Italy artisan products.

Information on the referenced art object:
This intriguing sculpture was cast from the female head of the ancient marble statue Cesi Juno (Rome, Capitoline Museum), which Michelangelo described as the most beautiful object in Rome. It may be one of the bronze casts after antique Roman statues that the French king Francis I commissioned from Primaticcio, his court artist, for the chateau at Fontainebleau, outside Paris; Double Head is depicted in a print of about 1650 above the entrance to a garden at Fontainebleau. It then passed to several famous collectors, including the 18th-century connoisseur Pierre Crozat and the 20th-century designer Yves Saint Laurent. 

Double Head, about 1543
Attributed to Francesco Primaticcio (Italian, 1504-1570)
Bronze, 56 cm x 35 cm x 20 cm (22 1/16 inches x 13 inches x 7 inches)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.45