CIRCLE OF MASSIMILIANO SOLDANI BENZI ITALIAN, FLORENCE, CA. 1700, CRISTO MORTO - CIRCLE OF MASSIMILIANO SOLDANI BENZI ITALIAN, FLORENCE, CA. 1700 CRISTO MORTO Terracotta, on ebonised wood base the figure 64.5cm long, 29cm deep, 14cm high, base 78.5 by 39.5cmThis powerful representation of the recumbent Cristo Morto (Dead Christ) has been associated with the 18th century Florentine sculptor, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1656-1740). Soldani gained an international reputation across Europe due to the dissemination of his bronze casts of copies after the Antique, as well as his own mythological and religious compositions. This was achieved by the direct patronage of important foreign clients, for example Prince Johann Adam Andreas I of Liechtenstein and the Duke of Marlborough, and by Soldani's personal marketing of his works through agents throughout Europe, such as Giovanni Giacomo Zamboni in London. In addition to bronzes, Soldani's models were reproduced in Doccia porcelain, which made his compositions available to a wholly different level of collector. The iconography of the Pietà has become especially closely associated with Soldani; his interpretations of this subject were so influential that they have become the starting point for any attribution of an anonymous recumbent Cristo Morto made in Italy in the first half of the 18th century. Devotional images of Christ's recumbent dead body, variously known as the Lamentation, the Pietà or more generally as the Cristo Morto or Dead Christ, are a harrowing and intense iconography that has obviously been interpreted by artists in many different ways. Perhaps the most famous Pietà in Italian Renaissance sculpture is Michelangelo's marble group in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Inevitably, Soldani's interpretation of the subject matter pays homage to Il Divino, as do other late 17th or early 18th century sculptors' essays on this theme, which may also have influenced the sculptor of our version. Other notable interpretations include the Roman sculptor François Duquesnoy's (1597-1643) terracotta in the Ashmolean Museum (inv. WA1940.190); the Sienese sculptor Giuseppe Mazzuoli's (1644-1725) various models, such as his exquisite marble in Santa Maria della Scala, Siena and a large terracotta relief, sold Sotheby's, New York, 29 January 2021, lot 146; and the Bolognese sculptor Giuseppe Mazza's (1653-1741) signed terracotta relief, with Walter Padovani, Milan. There are also other relevant Florentine models that have affinities with the present terracotta. A polychrome wood Cristo Morto in the Monastery of St Agata, Florence is depicted, like this terracotta, alone and lying flat on a shroud, His knees drawn up slightly and His right hand stretched out by his side. The treatment of His torso, the stomach pulled in and the chest muscular, is also comparable to the present terracotta. This contrasts with Christ's anatomy in Soldani's various models where the body of the Saviour is fuller and has a softer handling of the musculature. The St Agata Cristo Morto is attributed to a sculptor in the circle of Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), and it is in this context that the present terracotta seems to find the closest parallels. A particularly noteworthy example is Balthazar Permoser's (1651-1732) recumbent Dead Christ in the church of St Matthias, Breslau. Around the 1680s, Permoser worked in Foggini's studio for over a decade. Permoser's Christ has similar anatomy and a close handling of the bony hands. But, most unusually, Permoser includes the Christogram 'INRI' under Christ's head. This feature is unknown to the present author in any other model of the Dead Christ, except the present terracotta. A terracotta Cristo Morto in SS Michele e Gaetano, Florence, formerly associated with the school of Foggini, but now ascribed to Giuseppe Piamontini (1664-1742) suggests another, but closely related environment in which the sculptor of the present terracotta could have worked. Piamontini's terracotta mirrors the present work in its anatomy and bony fingers but is less emaciated overall - a beautiful alabaster Cristo Morto by Piamontini in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence evinces a similar treatment. Foggini and Piamontini were, alongside Soldani, the leading rival sculptors in Florence around 1700 and any sculptor who worked in, or even passed through, their studios will have assimilated a characteristic Florentine style, a style that is tangible in the present terracotta. However, the degree of emaciation in the body and the bony anguish in the hands in this model of the Cristo Morto brings to mind a more northern aesthetic which could point to a foreign sculptor trained in Florence in the late 17th or early 18th century. We thank Alexander Kader for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. For further information on this lot please visit our website.
Estim. 20,000 - 30,000 GBP
