Christ’s garment gathered in a band at the neck, the truncated bust encircled by the heads of cherubs.
Once mounted high, perhaps as part of a tomb monument, it now stands on a marble base from the workshop of Piranesi, circa 1765.
Pietro Torrigiano (1472-1528) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence who was influential in introducing Renaissance art to England.
He was commissioned to create the tomb monument for Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII and later, the magnificent effigies for the tomb of Henry VII and his queen.
These remain in Westminster Abbey, but much of his later work in the Abbey was destroyed by Puritans in the 17th Century.
