Description
Circa 1760-70, almost certainly Doccia, Winter with incised 93, Summer with incised 63 and gb, almost certainly for the modeller Gaspero Bruschi Probably modelled by Gaspero Bruschi after the models by Rusconi, Spring and Summer as girls, Autumn and Winter as boys, Spring holding a garland of flowers, Summer holding a sheaf of corn in her right hand and weaving corn through her hair with her left hand, Autumn eating a bunch of grapes held in his raised left hand, Winter pulling a shawl around his shoulders, Spring, Summer and Autumn seated on large rockwork bases and Winter on a tree-stump (Spring with some chipping to garland, flowers lacking from hair, slight chip to drape at back, Summer with filled firing crack through base and right thigh, Autumn with extensive losses to vine garland, Winter with minute chipping to extremities) Approximately 20 in. (51 cm.) high (4) NOTES These four very large and important figures of the Seasons appear to be unrecorded. The figures are all related to the four marble sculptures of the Four Seasons and their four terra-cotta modelli by the Roman sculptor Camillo Rusconi in circa 1710. The present porcelain figures of Winter and Autumn are clearly very closely derived from Rusconi's originals, whereas the figures of Spring and Summer, although related, have undergone more changes in the process of translation from the originals into porcelain. Rusconi's marbles, now part of the Royal Collection, have been in Windsor Castle since 1828, but their provenance still remains uncertain. They are first recorded as being in Kensington Palace in William Henry Payne's aquatint of the King's Gallery, published in Pyne's Royal Residences (1816), and recorded again in Faulkner's guide to Kensington in 1820. Although there is currently no documentary evidence that the figures were part of the Royal Collection during the 18th Century, they were almost certainly in England by 1732. Rusconi's friend, biographer and fellow sculptor, Filippo della Valle (1698-1768), recorded in a letter to Monsignore Giovanni Bottari (dated 10th January 1732) that Rusconi's marbles of the Four Seasons had been sold and sent to the 'Royal cabinet' in England, having cost four thousand ducats: '...trasportati in Inghilterra, e sono adesso nel regio gabinetto mediante il prezzo di scudi quattro mila' . Another contemporary and biographer, Francesco Saverio Baldinucci, is more specific in his biography of circa 1735, and records: '... essendo state vendute ad alcuni inglesi a Londra le portarono, furon vedute dal (sic) Re Giorgio, il quale non volle che escissero delle mani sue; e comperate per quattromila scudi, le ripose nella sua Regia Galleria, dove sono custodite e da ogni dilettante sommamente ammirate (having been sold to certain Englishmen in London, they were taken and sold to King George for 4,000 ducats, who did not want to let them out of his sight. He took them to the Royal Gallery where they are looked after and admired). Assuming that the marbles were in England by 1732, and in the apparent absence of a print source, the present porcelain figures must have been derived and adapted from the terra-cotta modelli made by Rusconi, or other copies made from these. Two of the four terra-cottas by Rusconi, Winter and Summer, are now in the Sackler Collection in New York (see the exhibition catalogue, Dr. Charles Avery, 'Finger Prints of the Artist, European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections' Catalogue (New York 1981), pp. 82-85, nos. 25 and 26), and Spring and Autumn were recently exhibited by Patrice Bellanger at the Paris Biennale in 1996. The paste of the porcelain itself suggests that the present figures were made at Doccia. Although the majority of the surface of each figure has been polished to achieve greater clarity of form in imitation of marble, parts such as the toes or rocks remain thinly glazed, and these areas appear to bear the usual appearance of Doccia porcelain. It is also very probable that the incised gb to the base of Summer is the mark of the chief modeller Gaspero Bruschi (active at Doccia 1737-1778). K. Lankheit discusses in Die Modellsammlung der Porzellanmanufaktur Doccias (Mnich, 1982) that Doccia made a number of large models after Rusconi (including models of the apostles Andrew and John by Gaspero Bruschi, eleven apostles after Rusconi's marble statues around the nave of St. John Lateran in Rome, and two putti, 65 cm. high, were made after the lost ones from the high altar of Ss Vito e Modesto in Rome). Lankheit also mentions (p. 30) that marble figures by Rusconi (and della Valle) were produced in 'biscuit' porcelain. The Marchese Carlo Ginori (1701-1757), founder of the manufactory, was known to have obtained models, originally intended for bronze statuettes, from the sculptor Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1656-1740), and it is very possible that the factory had access to Rusconi's modelli (or copies made from them) via Benzi. Casts and copies after both antique and contemporary sculpture were collected by painters, sculptors and collectors, and Rusconi himself had been set the task of making copies of the statues of Algardi and Bernini while still working in Ercole Ferrata's studio in Rome. It is therefore not surprising that other versions of Rusconi's terra-cottas exist. A version of Winter (catalogued as Duquesnoy) in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg is substantially different from Rusconi's terra-cotta and final marble version (and is only 27 cm. high). Another version of Winter in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome is 31 cm. high. Interestingly, only Rusconi's terra-cottas correspond almost exactly in size to the present porcelain figures (Winter is 53.7 cm. high and Summer is 50.8 cm. high). In the apparent absence of any documentary evidence for these porcelain figures (at the time of printing), the provenance of Rusconi's terra-cottas is an important piece in the puzzle of a secure attribution. Rusconi originally made the first terra-cotta of a putto with grapes for himself, and had not conceived of it as a figure emblematic of Autumn. It was only when his contemporaries persuaded him to carve it in marble, and when one of Rome's leading patrons, the Marchese Niccol• Maria Pallavicini (1650-1714) had seen it, that he was commissioned to carve a further three figures to complete a set of the Seasons. Pallavicini was the illegitimate son of Carlo Pallavicini, and probably did not inherit any works of art from the Pallavicini family, but appears to have built up his own extensive collection by himself (principally paintings). Although it is not clear if Rusconi's terra-cottas were also bought by Pallavicini, after his death in 1714 the marble Four Seasons remained in his Palazzo for some years, as they were seen there by Edward Wright when he was accompanying Lord George Parker on his visit to Italy in 1721. The Florentine Arnaldi family, who bought the majority of Pallavicini's collection once it was dispersed, subsequently sold a large amount of works due to financial problems. Many works were bought by English collectors, as Horace Walpole records '...It was bought by Jervase the Painter out of the Arnaldi Palace at Florence, where are the remains of the great Pallavicini Collection, from whence Sir Robert bought several of his Pictures' ( Aedes Walpolianae [London, 2nd. edn, 1752], p. 57). It is tempting to think that the Arnaldis could have had the terra-cotta modelli, especially as they were geographically so close to Doccia. However, more research needs to be done in this direction, and it is equally possible that Benzi could have acquired the terra-cottas via another source. For two large figures modelled by Gaspero Bruschi in the Doccia Museum, Florence, see Prof. Giuseppe Liverani, 'Il Museo Delle Porcellane Di Doccia' Catalogue (1967), p. 64 and pl. VIII for a large figure of a satyr (48 cm. high) and p. 64 and pl. X for a large figure of St. John the Evangelist (77 cm. high).
