.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
"I suppose nothing brings the real air of a Tuscan town so vividly to mind as those pieces of pale blue and white earthenware...like fragments of the milky sky itself, fallen into the cool streets, and breaking into the darkened churches." (William Pater)
The Magic Recipe
Luca della Robbia is celebrated for perfecting the art of tin-glazed terracotta. The coloured glazes of the della Robbia’s were made of silicon, tin and lead oxides mixed with other ‘secret’ ingredients that created a glossy, water-resistant surface that does not fade, and enhanced the expressive effects of the sculptural forms, worked out of clay from the river Arno. From the mid-15th century onwards Luca worked almost exclusively in this medium, together with his nephew Andrea, as their works became rapidly successful throughout Europe.
Santi Buglioni
According to Vasari the knowledge of how to produce such works was passed onto the rival Buglioni family through espionage. Benedetto Buglioni ‘received the secret of glazed terra-cotta work from a woman related to the house of Andrea della Robbia…From Benedetto the secret descended to Santi Buglioni, the only man who now knows how to work at this sort of sculpture’ (Vasari, loc. cit.). Santi Buglioni was a relative of Benedetto Buglioni, with whom he collaborated, and inherited his workshop and name. He soon developed a more modern style than Benedetto, reflecting his interest in Mannerism, which was then developing under his contemporary Michelangelo. Buglioni worked with Michelangelo’s pupil Niccolò Tribolo on the decorations for the wedding of Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo in 1539, and on the pavements of the library at S Lorenzo and in the Palazzo Vecchio and Boboli Gardens.
The Allendale Roundel
One of Santi Buglioni’s earliest independent works was a large altarpiece of the Madonna Enthroned with Saints at San Gimignano, Antona. In the lunette for this altarpiece Buglioni devised a scene of the Virgin, robed in white, kneeling in adoration before the nude Christ Child, who is supported by an adoring Angel (Marquand, op. cit., no 70). This same composition was used successfully as the focal point of the present lot, but transported into a medallion form of imposing scale with a lavish frame of a continuous wreath of fruit, flowers and wheat. This form was evidently popular and a number of versions survive, of which the best known are in the Bode Museum, Berlin, and in the Museo di Palazzo Taglieschi, Anghiari (Gentilini, loc. cit.). These other versions each differ in the colour and intensity of the glazes they have been given.
The Allendale Group
Thomas Wentworth Beaumont (1792–1848) was a prominent Liberal at the time of the Reform Bill and a great artistic patron, who had the wealth of the Blackett’s Yorkshire lead mines at his disposal. In 1847 Beaumont acquired Giorgione's celebrated Adoration of the Shepherds now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. This painting became known as the Allendale Nativity, and the related panels of the altarpiece the Allendale Group, after his son Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, who was raised to the peerage as Baron Allendale. Wentworth Blackett Beaumont was also a great collector of Italian Renaissance paintings, which were predominantly displayed at his ancestral home, the Palladian Bretton Hall, which is now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Please note the present lot is accompanied by a thermoluminescence test from Oxford Authentication dated 17 October 2016 stating that it was last fired between 400 and 700 years ago.
The Magic Recipe
Luca della Robbia is celebrated for perfecting the art of tin-glazed terracotta. The coloured glazes of the della Robbia’s were made of silicon, tin and lead oxides mixed with other ‘secret’ ingredients that created a glossy, water-resistant surface that does not fade, and enhanced the expressive effects of the sculptural forms, worked out of clay from the river Arno. From the mid-15th century onwards Luca worked almost exclusively in this medium, together with his nephew Andrea, as their works became rapidly successful throughout Europe.
Santi Buglioni
According to Vasari the knowledge of how to produce such works was passed onto the rival Buglioni family through espionage. Benedetto Buglioni ‘received the secret of glazed terra-cotta work from a woman related to the house of Andrea della Robbia…From Benedetto the secret descended to Santi Buglioni, the only man who now knows how to work at this sort of sculpture’ (Vasari, loc. cit.). Santi Buglioni was a relative of Benedetto Buglioni, with whom he collaborated, and inherited his workshop and name. He soon developed a more modern style than Benedetto, reflecting his interest in Mannerism, which was then developing under his contemporary Michelangelo. Buglioni worked with Michelangelo’s pupil Niccolò Tribolo on the decorations for the wedding of Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo in 1539, and on the pavements of the library at S Lorenzo and in the Palazzo Vecchio and Boboli Gardens.
The Allendale Roundel
One of Santi Buglioni’s earliest independent works was a large altarpiece of the Madonna Enthroned with Saints at San Gimignano, Antona. In the lunette for this altarpiece Buglioni devised a scene of the Virgin, robed in white, kneeling in adoration before the nude Christ Child, who is supported by an adoring Angel (Marquand, op. cit., no 70). This same composition was used successfully as the focal point of the present lot, but transported into a medallion form of imposing scale with a lavish frame of a continuous wreath of fruit, flowers and wheat. This form was evidently popular and a number of versions survive, of which the best known are in the Bode Museum, Berlin, and in the Museo di Palazzo Taglieschi, Anghiari (Gentilini, loc. cit.). These other versions each differ in the colour and intensity of the glazes they have been given.
The Allendale Group
Thomas Wentworth Beaumont (1792–1848) was a prominent Liberal at the time of the Reform Bill and a great artistic patron, who had the wealth of the Blackett’s Yorkshire lead mines at his disposal. In 1847 Beaumont acquired Giorgione's celebrated Adoration of the Shepherds now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. This painting became known as the Allendale Nativity, and the related panels of the altarpiece the Allendale Group, after his son Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, who was raised to the peerage as Baron Allendale. Wentworth Blackett Beaumont was also a great collector of Italian Renaissance paintings, which were predominantly displayed at his ancestral home, the Palladian Bretton Hall, which is now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Please note the present lot is accompanied by a thermoluminescence test from Oxford Authentication dated 17 October 2016 stating that it was last fired between 400 and 700 years ago.