Lot 69: Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1737) Italian, Rome, circa 1700 , Temperance bronze

bronze

measurements note 17cm., 6¾in.

Giovanni Battista Foggini was the foremost sculptor of the Florentine Baroque, practicing with a skill and style that both borrowed and distinguished his works from his Roman counterparts. His early training was as a painter, but his even greater facility in the plastic arts quickly became apparent. So much so, he caught the attention of Cosimo III de'Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who invited the sculptor into the newly-formed Accademia Fiorentina in Rome. At the Accademia, Foggini studied with the sculptor Ercole Ferrata (1610-1686) and the painter Ciro Ferri (1634-1689).

Foggini returned to Florence from Rome in 1676 and upon the death of Ferdinando Tacca (1619-1686), he was appointed Grand Ducal sculptor, and later in 1694-5. Foggini following his predecessors lead, modelled a number of mythological and allegorical bronzes.

The present bronze, relates to some of Ciro Ferri's drawings. It represents Temperance, one of the four virtues in Hellenic society, which was adopted by the Catholic Church as the Four Cardinal Virtues, to which the good should aspire. Foggini modelled the present bronze as one of four personified virtues. Three of which, Prudence, Fortitude, and Justice are in the Collection Gonzalez-Palacios, Rome and illustrated in Pratesi's Repertorio della Scultura Fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento, no. 209. It is possible that the present bronze was separated from the group. Temperance's rippling, soft drapery is set in contrast to her smooth skin betraying the very nature of the cold, hard bronze in which she is cast.

RELATED LITERATURE
K. Lankheit: "Il giornale del Foggini", Rivista d'arte, xxxiv, 1959, pp. 55-108; K. Lankheit: Florentinische Barockplastik, Munich, 1962, pp. 47-109; G. Pratesi, Repertorio della Scultura Fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento. Turin, 1994, no. 209