After a period in Rome working in the studios of both Ercole Ferrata and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giuseppe Mazzuoli was called back to Tuscany by the Chigi family (the sculptor was a favorite of the influential Cardinal Flavio Chigi) to carve the now- celebrated marble relief of the Deposed Christ for the antependium of the altar of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena (1673) (fig.1). Early in his career, Mazzuoli had worked in the town of Montegufoni, situated between Florence and Siena and not far from the Church of Santa Maria della Scala. The present magnificent relief remained in the Castel Montegufoni until the 19th century.

The bozzetto for the marble in the church, now in the Chigi-Saracini Collection (fig. 2), corresponds closely with the Diamond relief in that it shows Christ with his hand resting on his thigh and with his legs crossed.¹ However, the position of the body, which is turned toward the viewer, and the head of Christ thrown backward are closer to depictions of the Deposed Christ by Giuseppe's nephew Bartolomeo² with whom he collaborated on a number of projects.

Several reliefs with the Deposed Christ with angels by Bartolomeo and his workshop exist in museums but none of them approach the magnificent size and depth of the present sculpture. Furthermore, the connection between the mourners and Christ's body, the rich contrasts between light and shadow produced by the varying depths of relief and the voluminous drapery, create a highly dramatic effect and a linear motion. A nearly identical but smaller terracotta relief measuring 73.5 by 68 cm. is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 3) and may be a preliminary model for the present work.

Jennifer Montagu's seminal monograph on Alessandro Algardi, Bernini's archrival in Rome, includes an image of Algardi’s stucco relief of The Trinity on the altar in SS. Luca e Martina in Rome which also corresponds with the Diamond relief in the position of the figure of Christ, the outstretched arms of God and the Virgin’s billowing drapes on the right-hand side of the composition.⁴ Because Giuseppe Mazzuoli worked with Ferrata, who later became Algardi's apprentice and at one point owned Algardi's Trinity relief, it is therefore possible that Mazzuoli saw Algardi’s relief and used it as a model for the present sculpture.

Together with Ferrata, Giuseppe Mazzuoli was frequently employed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini to assist with large commissions and was among the sculptors who worked on Bernini’s Tomb of Pope Alexander VII (1672–78) in St. Peter's. When Pope Clement XI and Benedetto Cardinal Pamphilij announced their grand scheme for twelve over life-size sculptures of the Apostles to fill the niches along the nave of the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in 1702, the project was divided among the premier sculptors of Rome. Each statue was to be sponsored by an illustrious prince, and Mazzuoli was assigned the statue of Saint Philip, financed by the archbishop of Würzburg and finished in 1711.

The present relief is one of the largest terracotta sculptures known by the Mazzuoli family and is a rare survival which combines both Giuseppe’s and Bartomoleo’s unique sense of design as well as their prominence within the artistic circles of Rome during the Baroque period.

RELATED LITERATURE
A. E. Brinkmann, Barock-Bozzetti, vol. II, Frankfurt am Main, 1925, no. 88;
Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi, La Scultura: Bozzetti in terracotta piccoli marmi e altre sculture dal XIV al XX secolo, Siena, 1989;
Ian Wardopper, From the Sculptor's Hand: Italian Baroque terracottas from the State Hermitage Museum (exhibition catalogue), The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998, pp. 102-103;
Monika Butzek, Scultura barocca: studi in terracotta dalla bottega dei Mazzuoli, Milan, 2007

^{1 Gentilini and Sisi, op. cit., 1989, pl. XIX
2 Gentilini and Sisi, op. cit., 1989, cat. 101
3 Washington, New York, Cambridge 1979-1982, op. cit.
4 op. cit., vol. II, pl. 61, cat. no. 36}