Ippolito Buzzi Portrait Bust of Luisa Deti (mother of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini) ca. 1605 marble Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Ippolito Buzzi Portrait Bust of Luisa Deti (mother of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini) ca. 1605 marble Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Stefano Maderno Nicodemus with the body of Christ 1605 marble relief Bode Museum, Berlin |
Gianlorenzo Bernini St Sebastian 1616-17 marble statuette Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
Gianlorenzo Bernini St Longinus 1639 colossal marble statue St Peter's Basilica, Rome |
Andrea Bolgi St Helena with the True Cross 1646 colossal marble statue St-Peter's-Basilica-Rome |
attributed to Orfeo Boselli Bust of Plato ca. 1635-40 marble Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"White marble" wrote Orfeo Boselli in the 1650s, "is, and always will be, the most suitable material one could possibly find for making statues, and I am convinced that it was for this purpose that Nature created it, pure, shining, workable and enduring."
But if this was the ideal that nature intended, in practice she did not always achieve it. Boselli himself admitted that, if the greatest delight of a sculptor was to have a good piece of marble, the worst trouble that could befall him was to have a bad piece, and in comparing the sculptor to the painter he pointed to the hard lot of the former, who so often had to contend with marble in which nature had placed stains, cracks, faults, impurities, iron veins and other disasters that would try the patience of a saint.
– Jennifer Montagu, from Roman Baroque Sculpture: The Industry of Art (Yale University Press, 1989)
Ercole Ferrata under direction of Francesco Borromini Angel with Shield (Sepulchral Monument to Cardinal Lelio Falconieri) ca. 1650 marble Basilica di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini, Rome |
Ercole Ferrata under direction of Gianlorenzo Bernini Angel (supporting altarpiece painting, The Visitation by Giovanni Maria Morandi) ca. 1657-59 marble Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome |
Ercole Ferrata under direction of Gianlorenzo Bernini Angel (supporting altarpiece painting, The Visitation by Giovanni Maria Morandi) ca. 1657-59 marble Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome |
Ercole Ferrata and Cosimo Fancelli St Bernardino of Siena ca. 1660 marble Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pace, Rome |
Ercole Ferrata Martyrdom of St Agnes ca. 1660-64 marble Chiesa di Sant' Agnese in Agone, Rome |
Ercole Ferrata under direction of Gianlorenzo Bernini Angel with Cross ca. 1670 marble Ponte Sant' Angelo, Rome |
Giovanni Camillo Cateni Bust of Neptune 1690 marble Villa Medicea di Cerreto Guidi |
Giuseppe Piamontini Bust of Cleopatra 1690 marble Villa Medicea di Cerreto Guidi |