Mazzuoli Workshop

Private Collection, England; Heim Gallery, London

RELATED LITERATURE

Schlegel 1972; Butzek 1988, p. 87; Gentilini and Sisi 1989, pp. 268-271 and 351-353

The present bronze group relates to the multiple reliefs of this subject executed by both Giuseppe and Bartolomeo Mazzuoli, beginning with Giuseppe's antependium for the high altar of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena (1670-1671). The lithe body, face and hair, as well as the elegant posture conveying a sense of heaviness to the body, are features of the Mazzuoli's work repeated here.
However, the more upright posture of the body, the position of the arms and the sharp-edged, larger swathes of drapery differ from the antependium and the sketch-model for it, now in the Chigi-Saracini Collection, Siena. In fact, the drapery in both brothers' reliefs of the Deposition, (Gentilini and Sisi 1999, op. cit. pp. 269-270 and 351-353) is more successfully replicated in a bronze version in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (Gentilini and Sisi 1999, fig. 200). The North Carolina bronze, by the workshop of the Mazzuoli, reclines on a bed of drapery replete with numerous, restless folds. Both bronzes are tooled with striations on the bases and rocks. The author of the Sackler bronze uses the Mazzuoli model and develops it by adding details such as the angel and skull and places Christ's body in a more evocative surrounding.