Lot 448: CAMILLO RUSCONI

CHRISTO MORTO

height of cross 55 1/2 in.; 141 cm ; height of bronze 32 1/4 in.; 82 cm

gilt bronze on modern wood cross

second half 17th century

Montagu 2006, p.824, fn.34; Montagu 2007, fig. 2(illus.)

Principi Chigi, Rome; Private Collection, Germany; Alex Wengraf, Ltd., London

RELATED LITERATURE

Lòpez 2001

The model for this "bellisimo bronzo dorato..." (Montagu 2007, op.cit., fig.2, p.63) was originally ascribed to Cafà, partially due to its Chigi provenance and the fact that Cafà worked for the Chigi Pope Alexander VII. Subsequently, an attribution to Algardi was convincingly proposed by Montagu based on documented drawings of a nearly identical corpus by him, as well as engravings by Grimaldi dated 1644 that credit Algardi with the design.

Barucca, however, first proposed in 2001 (López 2001, op.cit., p.192), that the model for the large silver corpus by Giovanni Giardini (1715), made for the Cathedral of S. M. Assunta, Mantelica (Montagu 2007, op.cit., fig.1), which is closely linked to that of the present bronze, originated in Rusconi's circle. Montagu went on to suggest that Giardini was likely to have cast his silver sculpture directly from Rusconi's model. Stylistically the composition is clearly linked to Rusconi ; both Rusconi and Giardini also shared a patron, Marchese Niccolò Pallavicini , who commissioned the silver version.