Attributed to Giuseppe Mazzuoli (Italian, 1644-125): A terracotta figure of St Peter

Circa 1700

Footnotes

Provenance
Property of a Gentleman
Bruno Cooper Works of Art, Norwich, July 2002.

Giuseppe Mazzuoli was a highly proficient Baroque sculptor who worked in the Bernini style producing many highly accomplished monumental sculptures. Born in Volterra and trained in Siena, Mazzuoli spent most of his adult working life in Rome where he first entered the workshop of Ercole Ferrata (1610-1686) becoming the only pupil of Melchiorre Cafà (1636–1667), who also worked with Ferrata. Like Ferrata, Mazzuoli was frequently used by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) to assist with large commissions, and he was among the co-workers who cooperated in Bernini's Tomb of Pope Alexander VII (1672–78).

The offered lot can clearly be identified as Saint Peter by the pair of keys held in his left hand and a leather-bound book of scripture in his right with the plinth representing a bank of cloud with a prominent swirl supporting the weight of the figure as he twists his body.

An Oxford Authentication Ltd thermoluminescence report previously undertaken, which is dated 10 June 2002 (a copy of this can be supplied), confirms the date of the last firing of the figure as being between 250 and 450 years ago, i.e. circa 1550-1750. This period evidently encompasses the lifespan of the sculptor Giuseppe Mazzuoli, to whom an attribution has been made on stylistic and typographical grounds by Dottoressa Daniela Romano, Florence, whose PhD thesis was on this sculptor.

Given the appearance and confirmed date of this preparatory model or 'modellino', it not unreasonable to hypothesise that this figure may have formed part of the preparations made by Mazzuoli, for his series The Twelve Apostles, carved in marble between 1679 and 1689. Originally commissioned to replace the medieval figures set against the columns down the nave of Siena Cathedral, they were subsequently removed, circa 1890, since they were considered out of style with the purer 'Romanesque' interior of the building and are now at the Brompton Oratory, in London. Figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary also by Mazzuoli however were likewise removed from Siena Cathedral but are now presumed lost, although the gilded terracotta models for these figures are now in the Royal Scottish Museum.

Comparable models of St Matthew and St Philip from the set of Apostles can be found in the Ashmolean, Oxford.

Comparative Literature
Alastair Laing, Michael Napier & Alastair Laing (eds) The London Oratory Centenary 1884-1984, London, 1984, pp.65 ff. esp. pp.66,70.
Monika Butzek Die Modelsammiung der Mazzuoli in Siena Pantheon, 46, 1988, pp.785-102, pls. 33-36.
Giancarol Gentili and Carlo Sisi (eds) Collezione Chigi Saracini, 4: La Scultura -bozzetti in terracotta, piccolo marmi e alter sculture del XIV al XX secolo, exhibition catalogue, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Palazzp Chigi-Saracini, Florence 1989, II, pp.285-87, no.77a.
Nicholas Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, 1540 to the Present Day, vol I: Italian , Oxford, 1992, pp.77-78.