Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644-1725)

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The Death of Adonis, by Mazzuoli, 1709 (Hermitage Museum)
The Death of Adonis, by Mazzuoli, 1709 (Hermitage Museum)

Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644-1725) was an Italian sculptor working in the Bernini-derived Baroque style. He was born in Volterra and trained in Siena but spent his most of his adult working life in Rome,[1] where he was accepted into the workshop of Ercole Ferrata[2] and where he died. Mazzuoli was a member of the extensive workshop of Gian Lorenzo Bernini[3] and carried the extravagant voluptuous, strongly contrasted full Baroque style of his master into the eighteenth century. Mazzuoli was among the co-workers who cooperated in Bernini's tomb of Pope Alexander VII Chigi (1672-78).

Saint Philip by Mazzuoli, (Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
Saint Philip by Mazzuoli, (Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome

When the grand commissions of Pope Clement XI and Benedetto Cardinal Pamphili, for twelve over life-size sculptures of the Apostles to fill the niches along the nave of the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the project was divided among all the premier sculptors of Rome.[4] Mazzuoli was assigned Saint Philip, and provided a sketch, as all the sculptors were, by Clement's favourite painter, Carlo Maratta. His work on the project extended from 1703 to its erection in its niche, 1712/15.[5] Robert Cahn observed "When Saint Philip is compared with other apostles in the series, it is clear that the somewhat old-fashioned, Berniniesque style manifested in Mazzuoli's single assignment was losing appeal."[6]

A major commission of his later years was for the allegorical figures for the tomb of Ramon Perello (died 1720), Grand Master of the Order of Malta, in the church of Saint John, Valletta, Malta.[7] His son, also a sculptor, is generally distinguished as 'Giuseppe Mazzuoli the younger.

[edit] Selected works, in approximate chronological order

  • Charity, 1673-75, for Bernini's tomb of Alexander VII, carried out under the direct supervision of Bernini.[8]
  • Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, 1677-79., in situ flanking the high altar at the Church of Gesù e Maria, Corso, Rome. The church and the altar were designed by Carlo Rainaldi,[9] who is likely to have provided sketches for the sculptures that form part of the altar he designed.
  • Portrait busts of Fausto Cardinal Poli and Mons. Gaudenzio Poli, ca 1680, in situ in the Sacristy designed by Bernini (1641) of the Church of San Crisogono, Rome.[10]
  • Clemency, ca 1684 an allegorical figure among the sculptures for the tomb of Clement X Altieri, Basilica of San Pietro, executed under the design direction of Mattia De Rossi (1684).[11]
  • Bust of Innocent XII, 1700, in situ in a niche in the apse of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.
  • Bust of Clement XI, 1703, also in situ in a niche in the apse of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.[12]
  • Nereid, ca 1705-15 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC); it was identified as Thetis when in the Samuel H. Kress collection,[13] and attributed to the "school of Bernini."
  • The Death of Adonis, 1709 (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg).
  • Charity Triumphing over Greed, 1710-15 (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg); a bronze reduction is in the collections of Harvard University Art Museums.[14]
  • (attributed to the workshop or circle of Mazzuoli) Paired busts: Diana and Endymion, ca 1710-25 (Detroit Institute of Arts).
  • Death of Cleopatra, ca 1713 (Pinacoteca, Siena); a marble version of this group, ca. 1723, is in the grounds of the Opedale Coloniale, Lisbon,[15] and a terracotta modello at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[16]
  • Immaculate Conception, completed by September 1678, Church of San Martino, Siena.[17]
  • Apostles standing on brackets for the piers of the Duomo di Siena (Brompton Oratory, South Kensington, London. The Christ and the Virgin Mary for the same positions were removed and have been lost; they are represented by gilded terracotta modelli (bought from Jacques Heim for the Royal Scottish Museum, 1982).[18]
  • Portrait busts in medallions and allegorical figures of the four classical Virtues, dated 1713 and 1714 but executed in 1715-17 and 1718-19 (for the portrait busts),[19] in situ in the two double funerary monuments facing each other in the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini chapel, Church of San Francesco a Ripa, Rome. The architectue of the wall monuments is by Niccolò Michetti. Portrait busts of duke Giovanni Battista and Matia Cammilla Rospigliosi-Pallavicini (Pallavicini collection, Rome) were among the works contracted from Mazzuoli; copies of them were incorporated in the chapel's wall monuments.[20]
  • Saint Philip, ca 1718, in situ at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.[21]
  • (attributed to Mazzuoli) Pair of Angels above the altar in the second chapel on the left in the Church of Santa Maria in Campitelli. The attribution to Mazzuoli[22] is strengthened by the presence once more of Carlo Rainaldi, who masterpiece is this church.
  • Allegorical figures for the Tomb of Ramon Perello (died 1720), in the church of Saint John, Valletta, Malta.
  • Charity, 1723 (Chapel in the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, Rome). Mazzuoli's late work takes its place in a rich program of sculpture in the chapel originally designed by Carlo Maderno, but refitted by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi with rich colored marble revetments.[23] Mazzuoli notes his age— età 79— with his inscribed signature.
  • Education of the Virgin.[24]

The early biographer of Mazzuoli is Lione Pascoli, in Vite de' Pittori, Scultori ed Architetta Moderni, vol. II (Rome 1736). A number of terracotta models kept by Mazzuoli's heirs in Siena seem to have been part of a cache of the family workshop holdings that was donated to the Isituto di Belli Arti of Siena about 1767 by Giuseppe Maria Mazzuoli.[25]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ A return trip to Siena 1677-79 is noted by his early biographer Pascoli.
  2. ^ According to Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno... 18 (Florence) 1773:173, noted in Ursula Schlegel, "Some Statuettes of Giuseppe Mazzuoli" The Burlington Magazine 109 No. 772 (July 1967:386-95) p392, note 35; Melchiorre Caffà is also identified as an early master of Mazzuoli by Lione Pascoli (though Caffà died as early as 1667, and certainly before August 1668, when his heirs were testifying as to their claims, according to Wittkower).
  3. ^ Among his documented work on Bernini projects can be noted the clay bozzetti and wax models for casting in bronze connected with Bernini's Ciborium, discussed by Jennifer Montagu, "Two Small Bronzes from the Studio of Bernini" The Burlington Magazine 109 No. 775 (October 1967:566-571).
  4. ^ "The largest sculptural task in Rome during the early eighteenth century," according to Rudolph Wittkower (Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750, rev. ed. 1965:290); "the distribution for commissions is, at the same time, a good yardstick for measuring the reputation of contemporary sculptors."
  5. ^ Robert Cahn, "A Counterproof from a Drawing of the Lateran 'Saint Philip'" Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 38.1 (1979:11-13); Cahn is discussing a counterproof of a chalk drawing made of the finished sculpture as it was insdtalled, doubtless by one of Mazzuoli's numerous workshop assistants.
  6. ^ Cahn 1979:11.
  7. ^ A terracotta modello is at the Musée du Louvre, first recognized by Schlegel 1967:393 fig. 10.
  8. ^ A series of terracotta bozzetti and a bronze statuette in Berlin were associated with Mazzuoli's known figures of Caritas spanning his career, and attributed to him by Ursula Schlegel, "Some Statuettes of Giuseppe Mazzuoli" The Burlington Magazine 109 No. 772 (July 1967:386-95).
  9. ^ Touring Club Italiano (TCI), Roma e dintorni (1965:181.
  10. ^ TCI, Roma e dintorni 1965:443.
  11. ^ TCI, Roma e dintorni 1965:494
  12. ^ Both busts are noted in TCI, Roma e dintorni 1965:440
  13. ^ Georges Wildenstein preserved the tradition of the French collector from whom they bought it, that it had come from a royal context in or near Naples
  14. ^ Illustration, on-line.
  15. ^ Schlegel 1967:391, note 8
  16. ^ "New AcquisitionS;: illustration, on-line.
  17. ^ The work, commissioned by Alessandro de Vacchi, was completed in Rome and sent to Siena (David L. Bershad , "Recent Archival Discoveries concerning Michelangelo's 'Deposition' in the Florence Cathedral and a Hitherto Undocumented Work of Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644-1725)" The Burlington Magazine 120 No. 901 (April 1978:225-227).
  18. ^ Note by Richard Verdi in The Burlington Magazine 124 No. 953 (August 1982:518.
  19. ^ Robert Westin and Jean Westin, "Contributions to the Late Chronology of Giuseppe Mazzuoli" The Burlington Magazine 116 No. 850 (January 1974:36, 39-41) note from archival documents that the chapel was complete and the architectural elements of the wall tombs installed by the inscribed dates; Mazzuoli's payments begin in July 1716 and the last polishing was paid for in November 1717.
  20. ^ Frederick den Broeder, responding to the Westin article, "Letters", The Burlington Magazine 116 No. 855 (June 1974:332).
  21. ^ The first attribution to Mazzuoli, noted by Westin 1974:36, is in 1745
  22. ^ In TCI, Roma e dintorni 1965:254.
  23. ^ TCI, Roma e dintorni 1965:249.
  24. ^ Henry Hawley, "Giuseppe Mazzuoli: Education of the Virgin" Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60 (1973:293-99).
  25. ^ Noted by Carl Brandon Strehlke in reviewing the exhibition of the Saracini Collection for The Burlington Magazine 132 No. 1042 (January 1990:61 and fig. 63, illustrating a terracotta model of St. John the Baptist in the collection.
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