Beni Culturali Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Allegory of Simplicity

Giuseppe Raffaelli, La Semplicità - The Simplicity
Object belonging
One's own
Category
Terracotta sculpture
City
Rome
Location
Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia
Specific location
Room 26
Inventory
PV 00167
Material and technique
Terracotta/paint/wood/carving/gilding
Author
Giuseppe Raffaelli (1686-1731)
Dating
1696-1698 ca.
Dimensions
50 x 25.5x 14.3 cm
Origin
Ugo Jandolo (1919)
Image copyright
SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

When this fine work was acquired by Palazzo Venezia in 1919, it was thought to be a depiction of the Madonna by Pietro Bracci. Hermanin was the first to publish the work in 1948, attributing it to Antonio Raggi, while Santangelo believed it to be the work of an artist from outside of Rome from the last quarter of the 17th century. In 1960 Antonia Nava Cellini compared the fragment with the statue of Simplicity, made for one of the niches of the nave of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rome. Once this link was established between the model and its finished version, the sculptor remained to be identified. Mortari discovered a document, dated 22 November 1969, that revealed that the marble statue of Simplicity was sculpted by Giuseppe Raffaelli. Raffaelli would have completed the work before the end of 1698, and it can be assumed that the present model would have been created during the early stages of the commission. Her head is modestly bowed and her gaze is lowered in a style less reminiscent of Duquesnoy’s Saint Susanna and more of the many Madonnas in depictions of the Annunciation painted at the time by Carlo Maratti and transformed into sculptures by Camillo Rusconi.

Cristiano Giometti 

Bibliography

F. Hermanin, Il Palazzo di Venezia, Roma 1948, p. 280; A. Santangelo (ed.), Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Roma 1954, pp. 82-83; A. Nava Cellini, Duquesnoy e Poussin: nuovi contributi, "Paragone", 195 (1966), pp. 11, 59, n. 4; L. Mortari, S. Maria Maddalena, Roma 1987, pp. 49-54; O. Ferrari e S. Papaldo, Le sculture del Seicento a Roma, Roma 1999, pp. 230-231; C. Vigliarolo, 102.Allegoria della Semplicità, in M.G. Barberini and M. S. Sconci (eds.), Guida al Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Roma 2009, p. 92
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Page created 15/01/2009, last modify 15/11/2010