Giuseppe Mazzuoli

Formerly stored at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London;

Christie’s London, 21 April 1982, lot 122;

Where acquired by the present owner, private collection, the Netherlands

I. Wardropper (ed.), From the Sculptor’s Hand. Italian Baroque Terracottas from the State Hermitage Museum, exh. cat. The Art Institute of Chicago, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The State Hermitage Museum, 1998, pp. 102-103, no. 30

The present allegorical figure of Charity is represented as a woman accompanied by three young children. She triumphs over the vice of Avarice, depicted as a crouching old man, greedily clutching a purse full of coins in his right hand while biting the other. The model from which this bronze derives is a fragmentary terracotta bozzetto, formerly part of the collection of the bishop Filippo Farsetti (1703–1774), a major patron of the arts and an early promoter of Neoclassicism, where it was attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inv. no. Н.ск-618 ; see. op. cit., p. 102).

The excellent quality of the casting faithfully conveys the vigorous modelling of the terracotta bozzetto from which the bronze was cast. Indeed, it preserves several traces of Giuseppe Mazzuoli’s own hand, particularly visible on the terrasse. A parallel may be drawn with the dozen or so bronze casts currently known after Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s terracotta sketch for the Monument of Matilda of Canossa (St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, circa 1634–37). Each of these bronzes displays similar traces of the tool, and retains the unfinished character of the original terracotta.

Indeed, as a young sculptor, Giuseppe Mazzuoli assisted Gian Lorenzo Bernini on some of the most prestigious papal commissions of the period, including the Tomb of Pope Alexander VII (St. Peter's Basilica, circa 1672–78). For this monument, the young Sienese sculptor executed, under Bernini’s supervision, an over-lifesize marble figure of Charity. Nearly forty years later, Mazzuoli revisited the allegorical theme in the present multi-figured composition, which still retains the legacy of Bernini’s style, albeit reinterpreted in a more personal and independent manner.

The complex composition of the present Charity, gathering three children within her embrace, echoes yet another work by Gian Lorenzo Bernini: his first version of the allegorical figure for the Tomb of Pope Urban VIII (St. Peter's Basilica) whose terracotta bozzetto (circa 1627–28) is the only testimony (Musei Vaticani, inv. 62423). Bernini ultimately changed his mind and opted for a group with only two children, a composition that is easier to read, though less ambitious (ibid., inv. no. 62422).

In the present model, Giuseppe Mazzuoli succeeds in adding yet another layer of complexity to the four-figure composition through the grimacing figure of Avarice crouching at Charity’s feet, without in any way sacrificing the clarity of the ensemble. Such a tour de force is the hallmark of a great sculptor — and of a truly gifted inventor.

Only a handful of other bronze casts of this model are known: one in the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan, another in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (MA) (inv. no. 2003.277), and a third in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (inv. no. 7272).

RELATED LITERATURE

U. Schlegel, 'Some statuettes of Giuseppe Mazzuoli', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 109, no. 772, July 1967, pp. 386-395