A terracotta by Pierino da Vinci for Cleveland

1. Pierino da Vinci (1530-1553)
The Death of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Sons
Terracotta - 62.6 x 44.5 cm
Cleveland, Museum of Art
Photo: Stuart Lochhead Sculpture

See the image in its page

13/4/24 - Acquisition - Cleveland, Museum of Art - In February, a complex and fascinating sculpture joined the rich collections of the Ohio Museum, which was able to acquire it from Stuart Lochhead thanks to funding from the Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund: this superb 16th-century terracotta (ill. 1 to 4) recounts the terrible end of Ugolino della Gherardesca and his male descendants, locked in a tower and condemned to starvation. Mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy, this famous episode inspired Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s first masterpiece, although the account given in Canto XXXIII of the Inferno is of course open to interpretation, since the monstrous anthropophagy of the unfortunate man is not really attested. However, it is still an atrocious allegory of hunger that hangs over the scene depicted in this bas-relief, while the lapping waves and the river god stretched out in the foreground of course point to the Arno, which flows through Tuscany, passing through Florence and then Pisa.

2. Pierino da Vinci (1530-1553)
The Death of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Sons, detail
Terracotta - 62.6 x 44.5 cm
Cleveland, Museum of Art
Photo: Stuart Lochhead Sculpture

See the image in its page

3. Pierino da Vinci (1530-1553)
The Death of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Sons, detail
Terracotta - 62.6 x 44.5 cm
Cleveland, Museum of Art
Photo: Stuart Lochhead Sculpture

See the image in its page

Sentenced to an atrocious death, the condemned are a subject of choice for any artist, but this attractive terracotta has been linked to a particularly prestigious name: Pierino da Vinci, Leonardo’s nephew, who died prematurely and whose surviving works are extremely rare. His Ugolino is still famous, having…