Allegory of Abundance

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 26

Inventory

PV 01193

Material and technique

Terracotta/ patina

Author

After Filippo Della Valle (1698-1768)

Dating

19th century

Dimensions

32.5 x 15.5 x 7.5 cm

Origin

Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo (1920)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

When Filippo della Valle began work on the sculptural decoration of the Trevi Fountain in 1759, he was already considered one of the most eminent artists in Rome, having been head of the Accademia di San Luca between 1752 and 1753. Della Valle and Pietro Bracci were asked to replace Giovanni Battista Maini who had completed large stucco models for the central figure, Ocean, which Bracci then created in marble. Della Valle was commissioned to make the two lateral statues, depicting allegories of Health and Fertility; the works were finished in 1760. A model of Fertility is held at Palazzo Venezia, and is still in good condition despite cracks on the neck and left arm. Together with Bracci’s statue of Ocean (PV 1190), the work examined here derives from the scale model of the Trevi Fountain that belonged to Count Zeloni and is now in the Museo di Roma. The terracotta was attributed to Della Valle by Hermanin (1948), Santangelo (1954) and Honour (1959). Armando Schiavo, however, cast doubt on this attribution, believing it instead to be an eighteenth century copy of the original sculpture, designed to decorate Count Zeloni’s wooden model. More recently, Minor, in his monograph on the artist (1997), agreed with Schiavo’s view, arguing that the extremely fine detail suggests it is a later copy rather than a preparatory model.

Cristiano Giometti 

Bibliography

Guida Generale alle Mostre Retrospettive di Castel Sant'Angelo, Bergamo 1911, p. 91; V. Moschini, "Filippo della Valle", L'arte, 28 (1925), pp. 189; Il Settecento Italiano 1932, p. 649; A. Riccoboni, Roma nell'arte. La scultura nell'evo moderno dal Quattrocento ad oggi, Roma 1942, p. 291; F. Hermanin, Il Palazzo di Venezia, Roma 1948, pp. 282-283; A. Santangelo (ed.), Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Roma 1954, pp. 86-87; A. Santangelo, in Il Settecento a Roma, catalogo della mostra, Roma 1959, p. 95, no. 189b; H. Honour, "Filippo della Valle", The Connoisseur, CXLIV (1959), p. 177; Il Settecento a Roma 1959 (II ed.), p. 95; V. H. Minor, Passive tranquillity: the sculpture of Filippo Della Valle, Philadelphia 1997