An Italian terracotta group of Charity, from the circle of Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644-1725) last quarter of the 17th century

Giuseppe Mazzuoli, who worked in the Roman workshop of Gianlorenzo Bernini, executed four marble statues and some thirty terracottas of Charity. His most celebrated group of this subject was the Charity carved under Bernini's supervision for the Tomb of Pope Alexander VII in Saint Peter's Basilica between 1673 and 1675.  The present group relates closely to his marble on the Pallavicini Monument in S. Francesco a Ripa in Rome, 1713-14, for which a terracotta sketch still exists in the Pinacoteca, Siena.

However, the drapery here differs from the unrestrained rendering of the fabric in some of his later work such as the terracotta group in the Hermitage (Wardropper, op.cit., no. 30, pp. 102-103). The larger expanses of drapery folds, wide, opened eyes with incised irises and pupils as well as the Virgin's full lips are closer to his work of circa 1670, such as  the figure of the Immaculate Conception in the Chigi Saracini Collection in Siena (see Gentilini and Sisi, La  scultura bozzetti in terracotta piccoli marmi e altre sculture dal XIV al XX secolo, 1989, no. 74, pp.272-273). The facial features in the present terracotta portray a more animated figure as opposed to the drowsy, peacefulness evident many of Mazzuoli's representations of Virgin.

Also compare Mazzuoli's group, now in the Louvre (Les sculptures européennes du musée du Louvre, Paris, 2006, RF 1671, p. 165), of a seated figure of Charity supported by a half pediment which is a model for the tomb of Ramon Perellos in the church of Saint-Jean de La Valette, Malta.

The finished state of the present terracotta may indicate that it was a presentation model for an altar.

RELATED LITERATURE

A. E. Brinkmann, Barock-Bozzetti, Frankfurt am Main, vol. II, 1925, no. 88
I. Wardopper, From the Sculptor's Hand: Italian Baroque terracottas from the State Hermitage Museum (exh. cat.), The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998, pp. 102-103