18th-century Terracottas from Italy

Lorenzo Matiello
Apostle praying
1733
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Seated woman wearing peplos
ca. 1750
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Since the early Renaissance there had existed a special demand in Italian cities for small, refined ornaments to embellish the fashionable private rooms created as "studies" by elite individuals. The Scholar in His Study by Dora Thornton (Yale, 1997) was written after analyzing more than 500 written inventories with descriptions of the contents of such chambers. Books and paintings, as expected, receive a great deal of attention, but so do mirrors, inkstands, cabinets, and a variety of other edifying yet not necessarily expensive objects like the statuettes seen here. "Art historians have fast become accustomed to the notion that many surviving Renaissance panel paintings were originally associated with, or even part of, pieces of furniture, but the notion that furnishings could have much the same value as antiquities or what we would call works of art does not have a wide currency. Recent research has shown the extent to which Italian Renaissance hierarchies of aesthetic value were not only very different from our own, but to some extent countered a hierarchy based on financial value alone."

Francesco Moderati
St Francis of Paola
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Amorous couple
ca. 1750-75
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Bernardino Ludovisi
Winged Glory
1742-43
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Angel with candelabrum
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Angel with candelabrum
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Penitent Magdalene
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Angelo de Rossi
Apostle James the Less
ca. 1704
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Putto with sheaf of grain
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Pietro Bracci
Allegory of Strength
ca. 1741
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Anonymous Italian sculptor
Marsyas
ca. 1700-1725
terracotta
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg