BY GIOVANNI BATTISTA FOGGINI (1652-1725), CIRCA 1685-1700

Vittoria della Rovere was the only child of the last Duke of Urbino and, upon marrying her maternal cousin, the Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany, she brought the della Rovere art collection to the Medici family. The present lot is a second known example of a bust which Foggini executed for the grand duchess as a series of nine members of the family. This series, intended to adorn her residence Villa dell' Imperiale, included portraits of herself, her husband Ferdinando, two of her husband's uncles, her two sons, one daughter-in-law and her grandson, the Gran Principe Ferdinando (for illustrations of six of the busts see Lankheit, op. cit., figs. 171-178). The prime version of this portrait is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and it is thought that the present bust must have been commissioned by the grand duchess and given to the lifelong companion of her son, the Marchese Filippo Corsini (1647-1705) whose descendants still owned it at the time it was illustrated in Pratesi's Repertorio della Scultura Fiorentina in 1993 (op. cit., fig. 160).

Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725) was an exact contemporary of Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (see lot 245) and his rival for commissions from the ruling Medici family. He became court sculptor in 1686, and oversaw both the foundry at Borgo Pinti, and the Galeria dei Lavori, the workshop that specialised in the production of decorative objects in hardstone. Talented as a draughtsman, architect and sculptor, Foggini was one of the key figures in the final blossoming of the arts under the last of the Medici dynasty.