Passion killers

Beauty & Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes
Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, W1, until 25 July

Caravaggio’s Friends & Foes
Whitfield Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, W1, until 23 July

William Crozier: Early Work
Pyms Gallery, 9 Mount Street, W1, until 20 July

The temporary exhibition galleries of the Wallace Collection are in the basement, next to the lavatories, and while I was there more visitors came down for the purposes of relieving themselves than to acquire new knowledge and experience of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes. It’s a shame if this show is being overlooked, because there hasn’t been a display like it in England for more than 30 years, and there are indeed fine things to be seen. The majority of the exhibits come from the collection of the American architect Peter Marino, and it’s evident that considerable trouble has been taken with their installation.

The gallery spaces have been divided into three: a gold room and a Venetian red room for the Italian works, and a larger green room for the French. The visitor enters via the gold room to be greeted by a centaur twisting its hirsute head at you, before ‘Hercules and Antaeus’ catches the eye, a strongman act and fight to the death in anguished bronze. The struggling figures are brilliantly and evocatively modelled, all sweat-gleaming musculature and stretched tendons. In case the deadly nature of these combats is overlooked, a lion-headed falchion or sword hangs blade down between the nearby ‘Apollo and Marsyas’ and a rather effeminate-looking David triumphing over Goliath. Next to this is an altogether more martial Judith with the head of Holofernes. Not a woman to cross lightly.

Rather annoyingly, the exhibit numbers only sometimes coincide with the catalogue numbers, which does not make for clarity.