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- 1. Agostino Corsini (1688-1772)
Saint Jerome, 1734
Terracotta - 64.5 cm
Los Angeles, The John Paul Getty Museum
Photo: Lullo Pampoulides - See the image in its page
9/3/23 - Acquisition - Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum - It was one of the most seductive sculptures presented in June at the last edition of the Maastricht Fair (see article): the superb terracotta Saint Jerome (ill. 1) proposed on the stand of the Lullo Pampoulides Gallery was acquired there by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Much admired by all the visitors, who were sensitive to the ardor of this figure as well as to the virtuosity of its drapery, this one had the advantage of being unpublished, as the gallery’s rich notice, written by art historian Andrea Bacchi, states. Although the name of the Bolognese sculptor Agostino Corsini is hardly known outside of specialists in the city of the Popes, he nevertheless had a brilliant career between Rome and Naples, working on such prestigious projects as the Trevi Fountain and the façade of the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran during the 1730s. Already modified for the Jubilee of 1650, the latter building was entrusted by Pope Innocent X to the architect Francesco Borromini, who transformed the central nave and the side aisles while preserving the famous ceiling realized in the 16th century. Pope Clement XII, elected in 1730, commissioned the architect Alessandro Galilei to design a new façade for the patriarchal basilica, which is also the cathedral of Rome. Completed in 1735, it was one of the main religious works of the time: fifteen monumental statues in travertine still dominate this spectacular neo-Palladian façade, following a predefined iconographic program in which several doctors of the Church rub shoulders with the apostles. Above the pediment, one can recognize (ill. 2) Christ blessing, framed by St. John the Baptist on the left and St. John the Evangelist on the right, while St. Gregory - wearing his papal mitre - and St. Jerome, looking at his book, close the composition.
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- 2. Current view of the five statues dominating the center of the facade of the Basilica of St. John Lateran: St. Jerome, with his book, stands on the right
- See the image in its page
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- 3. Agostino Corsini (1688-1772)
Saint Jerome (detail), 1734
Terracotta - 64.5 cm
Los Angeles, The John Paul Getty Museum
Photo: Lullo Pampoulides - See the image in its page
Stern-looking, St. Jerome has evolved somewhat between terracotta (ill. 3) and travertine, but remains perfectly recognizable: the statue offered at Lullo Pampoulides was certainly a presentation model intended for the architect Alessandro Galilei, which can be dated to the year 1734 thanks to the numerous archives documenting this work. This was the subject of an article [1] by Anne-Lise Desmas in 1998, written when she was a resident at the Académie de France in Rome, where she began her doctoral thesis defended in 2009 at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Entitled Être sculpteur dans la Rome de Benoît XIII, Clément XII et Benoît XIV, 1724-1758 [2], it gave rise in 2012 to a solid publication with the seductive title: Le Ciseau et la Tiare (The Chisel and the Tiara). The art historian was already working at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which she joined in 2008 and where she officiates as senior curator and director of the department of sculpture and decorative arts. These few biographical elements shed new light on the acquisition of this terracotta by the Californian museum, which thus appears to be very coherent.
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- 4. Agostino Corsini (1688-1772)
Saint Jerome (detail), 1734
Terracotta - 64.5 cm
Los Angeles, The John Paul Getty Museum
Photo: Lullo Pampoulides - See the image in its page
If the figure of the saint does not undergo any major modification between the presentation of the terracotta and the execution of the final statue, the latter notably reverses the position of the irresistible lion (ill. 4) initially placed near the left foot. It is difficult, of course, to compare a monumental statue intended to be placed high up and visible from a distance with its modello, whose degree of completion makes it a work of art in itself. As Andrea Bacchi’s entry carefully notes, few terracotta models for monumental statues made in eighteenth-century Rome are known: the art historian cites, among others, that of Filippo della Valle (ill. 5) preparing his Niccolò Albergati of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was acquired by another Californian museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). For his part, Agostino Corsini produced other preparatory terracottas for larger sculptures, such as his Saint John of Matha in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, Massachusetts. The sculptor even went so far as to proudly sign his Adoration of the Golden Calf offered to the Victoria & Albert Museum (ill. 6) in London in 1952, suggesting that these terracottas were prized by enthusiasts or collectors.
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- 5. Filippo della Valle (1698-1768)
Niccolò Albergati, c. 1740-1743
Terracotta - 63.5 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art - See the image in its page
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- 6. Agostino Corsini (1688-1772)
The Adoration of the Golden Calf,
Terracotta - 71.1 x 54 cm
London, Victoria & Albert Museum
Photo: Victoria & Albert Museum - See the image in its page
Andrea Bacchi’s note wisely recalls how Bolognese sculptors were more often trained to work in terracotta than in stone or marble, which were difficult to get to the city because of the natural barrier formed by the Apennines, located on the road to the Carrara quarries. It is probably no coincidence that the only terracotta model for one of the statues on the façade of San Giovanni di Latrano was made by an artist from Bologna, even though Agostino Corsini was familiar with this type of commission. During the fruitful decade of 1730, he participated in the construction of the palace of Mafra, in Portugal, which houses one of the most beautiful groups of Italian baroque sculptures in Europe (see article): without going there, he sent two statues representing Saint Ignatius and Saint John of God, whose models are also known and preserved there. His most important civil commission is the emblematic work on the Trevi Fountain, to which he was called in 1735. The advent of Pope Benedict XIV did not mark the end of his career, since in 1746 he was commissioned to create a large travertine statue of Saint Peter for the façade of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna, his native city.