Female Figure
Red wax, 6 in. (15.2 cm), mounted on a red veined marble base.
[Illustrated above full-size.]
This seated female figure, with left knee raised, head and arms missing,
is one of only ten known wax bozzetti of mythological subjects modeled by
Giambologna. Its Mannerist serpentine pose known as figura serpentinata
promotes the sculpture in the round, from all sides. The interest of the
sculpture is in its upwardly spiraling movement rather than any narrative
suggestion.
While the four largest surviving wax bozzetti (Rape of the Sabine, Architecture, Hercules and the Hydra, Seated Woman) all have a relatively high degree of finish and more or less approximate finished compositions, the remaining six known waxes, by contrast, all less than 22 cm in height, are handled in a more spontaneous and preparatory manner. Of these six, three relate to models current in Giambologna’s oeuvre: Florence triumphant over Pisa, Hercules and the Centaur and Rape of the Sabine; two others, Standing Woman and Astrology, do not correspond with known works; and the sixth, the present Female Figure, relates to the marble Female Figure in the Getty Museum (82.SA.37).
The present wax Female Figure differs from all the other waxes in that the composition is unknown in any other versions, in any material, by any of Giambologna’s Florentine followers or in the extensive corpus of French bronzes after his models. Giambologna's reputation among contemporaries derived in part from the wide distribution of his works through small-scale bronzes. His large workshop with its many assistants made these small bronzes and continued to reproduce them even after his death. These reproductions were so prized they were often given as diplomatic gifts to foreign envoys, ambassadors, and royalty. Nevertheless, the Female Figure is absent from Giambologna’s stock of models freely copied by his many followers in the structured Medici workshop system. Although the 2006 Giambologna exhibition has postulated some questions on the attribution of the wax bozzetti, the fact that the present wax figure relates to a composition apparently unknown in Florence from as early as 1580 surely rules out the theory that this could be simply a follower's studio exercise. Further, the unusual surface condition of this wax with various cracks to the hard top layer is closely comparable to the Hercules and Hydra included in the 2006 exhibition.
Although the 2006 Giambologna exhibition has postulated some questions of attribution, the absence of any Florentine copies of the composition would seem to negate that this wax figure could be simply a follower's studio exercise. Apart from the present wax bozzetto, the only known replicas of the Getty marble are a bronze and plasters made in the late 17th century, which appear not to have been known outside Sweden.
The Getty marble, given by Francesco I de’ Medici (1541-1581) to one of the Dukes of Bavaria, must have left Florence before Francesco's death in 1581 and was therefore not part of the well-rehearsed Giambologna repertoire. The first definite documentary reference to the Getty marble is in a letter of 1635 referring to the art taken from the Bavarian ducal collections by King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, where it is identified as representing Bathsheba. Charles Avery, however, published it as Psyche in his 1987 monograph, while the Getty catalogue returns to the title of Female Figure, possibly Venus, which Herbert Keutner favored based on the list of female figures in the 1584 life of Giambologna by Raffaello Borghini. In Avery's 1987 monograph, the close similarities of the present wax are apparent to the Little Kneeling Nymph bronze of c. 1560, (fig. 46, no. 60), Kneeling Venus terracota of c. 1560 (fig. 56, no. 171) and Florence Triumphant over Pisa terracota dated 1565 (fig. 71, no. 190). Further, the unusual surface condition of this wax with various cracks to the hard top layer is closely comparable to the Hercules and Hydra included in the 2006 exhibition.
Provenance:
possibly William Locke, Norbury Park, dispersed Christie's, April 16, 1785
(Avery 1987 states at p. 241, referring to the present wax among others:
"There is thus good reason to believe that the majority of the models
that belonged to a coterie of the most important artists and connoisseurs
in England in the early nineteenth century originated from the Vecchietti
collection and had been imported en bloc in the first instance by Locke
of Norbury.") ;
Sir William Angerstein;
J.P. Heseltine by c. 1890;
Paget Collection, around 1912;
P. C. Wilson;
with dealer John Hewett in 1978;
Private collection, London.
Exhibited:
Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1888, Burlington House, London (cat. no.
10, p. 49);
Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of a collection of Italian sculpture
and other plastic art of the Renaissance, London, 1913, p.77, no.56.
Literature and References:
Avery, Charles and Radcliffe, Anthony, Giambologna, 1529-1608: sculptor
to the Medici, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain and Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, London, 1978, no. 248, p. 233.
Avery, Charles, "Giambologna's 'Bathsheba': an early marble statue
rediscovered," Burlington Magazine, CXXV, no. 963 (June 1983), at p.343
and n. 6.
Avery, Charles, Giambologna, the complete sculpture, Oxford, 1987,
fig. 285, p. 241, no. 173; see generally pp. 234-241.
Fogelman, Peggy and Fusco, Peter, with Marietta Cambareri, Italian and
Spanish Sculpture: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection,
Los Angeles, 2002, pp.84-96, no.12, see at p.88-89 and n. 28.
Heseltine, J.P., Trifles in Sculpture. From the collection of J.P.H.,
London, 1916, no.23.
Related Literature:
Giambologna: gli dei, gli eroi, exh. cat., Museo nazionale del
Bargello, Florence, 2006, pp.45-61.
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