Cherub

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 21

Inventory

PV 13317

Material and technique

Terracotta

Author

Giovan Francesco Fonti

Dating

c. 1675-1700

Dimensions

22x30 cm.

Origin

Cavaceppi Collection (1800); Torlonia Collection (last quarter of 19th century); Gorga Collection (1948)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

This small, finely crafted sculpture is made from pale terracotta, onto which a thin layer of white varnish has been applied, which now only covers part of the surface. It is in good condition and the composition can still be appreciated despite the loss of part of the lower half of the wings; so as to ensure the integrity of the work and enable it to be displayed, the work was fixed, at some point, to a rectangular slate base (23x32). In the catalogue entry of the Polo Museale della Città di Roma (OA 1200865312), it is attributed to Filippo Carcani (1644-1688), a skillfull sculptor active in the most important workshops of Rome’s churches in the second half of the century. There is, though, a very close likeness with the heads of the cherubs that decorate the oculus of Borromini’s dome of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, for which this terracotta might be a prototype. Work inside the church started in 1642 and continued until 1655, when it was decided to call a temporary halt to development. Work then resumed at the start of the pontificate of Alexander VII; following Borromini’s designs, Francesco Ghetti installed the marble floor while the stucco decorator and stonemason Giovanni Battista Fonti executed the stucco decorations in the dome. Fonti also completed the heads of the cherubs that stand out at the top of the six sections of the dome; these figures have the same puffy face as the present work, with the serious and pensive expression and ruffled hair. Fonti, one can conclude, executed the model after a design by Borromini and then painted it in white so as to better simulate the effect of the stucco.

Cristiano Giometti 

Bibliography

P. Cannata, Head of an Angel, in F. Buranelli and R.C. Dietrick (eds.), Between God and Man: Angels in Italian Art, exh. cat., Jackson 2007, p. 143.