Allegory of Faith with Portrait of Cardinal Lelio Falconieri

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 21

Inventory

GNAA 2556

Material and technique

Terracotta

Author

Ercole Ferrata (1610-1686)

Dating

1674 ca.

Dimensions

52x44.5x32.5 cm

Origin

Heim Gallery (1972)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

From 1665 the Falconieri chapel, in the apse of the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, bore witness to the work of the three most important sculptors of the generation that followed Bernini and Algardi. Under the guidance of Borromini, Antonio Raggi sculpted, in an openly Berninian style, the Baptism of Christ, for the niche behind the high altar, while Domenico Guidi was commissioned to execute the allegory of Charity for the Tomb of Orazio Falconieri and Ottavia Sacchetti, for the right-hand side niche. Opposite, Ercole Ferrata executed one of his greatest works, in the figure of Faith for the Monument of Cardinal Lelio Falconieri, perhaps after an idea of the Maltese sculptor Melchiorre Caffà. In the inventory of Ferrata from 1686, three models of the figure of Faith are listed amongst the objects in his studio in via delle Carceri Nuove. Two of these were recorded as by Ferrata, and the third under the name Melchiorre Cafà, a pupil and collaborator of Ferrata before the latter died prematurely in 1667 (V. Golzio, "Lo «studio» di Ercole Ferrata", Archivi d'Italia, II, 1935, pp 67, 73). There are now known to be 6 terracotta examples of this work, which vary in style and quality, but all bear witness to the different phases of the evolution of the composition. The Palazzo Venezia statuette could be the scale model shown by Ferrata to Paolo Francesco Falconieri, so as to obtain official approval to go ahead with the work. The surface of the figure of Faith, which has now lost the right hand that held the chalice, is smoothly worked and well defined, as is the profile portrait of Lelio Falconieri on the medallion held by the angel. “The ecstatic and somewhat sentimental expression” of the figure, and the “formal academic rendering of the drapery” (Barberini 1991), are characteristic of Ferrata’s mature period and serve to confirm the attribution.

Cristiano Giometti 

Bibliography

I. Faldi, Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica. Acquisti 1970-72, Roma 1972, pp. 38-39; M. G. Barberini (ed.), Sculture in terracotta del barocco romano. Bozzetti e modelli del Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, exh. cat., Roma 1991, pp. 53-54; M. G. Barberini and C. Gasparri (eds.), Bartolomeo Cavaceppi scultore romano (1717-1799), exh. cat., Roma 1994, p. 128; A. Bacchi, Scultura del ‘600 a Roma, Milano 1996, p. 803; M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, Scultura barocca romana (II). Due bozzetti di Ercole ferrata e Michel Maille, "Fimantiquari", 9 (1996), pp. 27-30; O. Ferrari and S. Papaldo, Le sculture del Seicento a Roma, Roma 1999, pp. 133-134, 506; J. Montagu, Melchiorre Cafà's models for Ercole Ferrata, in K. Sciberras (ed.), Melchiorre Cafà. Maltese Genius of the Roman Baroque, Malta 2006, pp. 68-71, 245-246