A marble tazza or basin
attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini (Vernio, Tuscany 1777 – Florence 1850)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1823 - 1850
Materials
marble
Measurements
985 mm (Height); 979 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Florence
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1221035
Summary
Sculpture, marble; a basin or tazza in neo-classical style; attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850); c. 1823-50. A shallow marble basin set upon a baluster pillar with a rectangular base. Italian neo-classical work, possibly made in the Florentine workshop of Lorenzo Bartolini, from whom the third Marquess of Londonderry commissioned major sculptures when in Florence in the early 1820s.
Full description
A sculpted marble tazza or basin on a baluster support, with the basin shallow and circular, the underside with plain gadrooning. The baluster stem has a swelling form, and is decorated with palmettes rising from the base, interspersed with buds, out of which emerge scrolled tendrils. At the bottom, a ring of lotus leaves, below which is the circular base, with a plain moulded ring, leading to a spreading circular foot, within a rectangular base. Two of the four corners of the foot have been chipped off; other damage include losses at the top of the baluster stem, whilst there is also a crack in the edge of the basin. The tazza is designed in the sophisticated and restrained neo-classical style that was popular in the first decades of the nineteenth century. It is possible that it was acquired in Florence by the third Marquess of Londonderry, when he and his wife Frances Anne spent a few weeks in the city in the early part of 1823. It was on this visit that Lord Londonderry commissioned at least two important works from the leading Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850), one of them the full-length statue of Frances Anne, Marchioness of Londonderry and her son George William Vane-Tempest, Viscount Seaham, also now at Mount Stewart (NT 1542334). The basin seems to have been bought for the family’s London home, Londonderry House, where in the late nineteenth century it was displayed in the Entrance Hall, close to the statue of Lady Londonderry and her son. Both sculptures may be seen in a photograph of the Hall taken in June 1886 (Historic England Photo Collection, Ref. BL06450). By 1935 the basin had been moved to Mount Stewart, where it was displayed in the centre of the Central Hall. Lorenzo Bartolini was throughout his career a hard-working sculptor, most of whose work consisted of portraits made to commission, at least 500 of which he sculpted between 1816 and 1846. Bartolini also made large numbers of decorative and ornamental sculptures, to judge from the testimony of his principal assistant Eliso Schianta, who wrote that ‘He received many commissions for commercial work, because he would undertake ornamental and architectonic work, such as vases, bowls and chimneypieces (‘Aveva molte commissioni di lavori di commercio, perchè faceva lavoro d’ornato, d’architettura, come vasi, tazze, cammini.’ Tinti 1936, II, p. 20). As a very young man Bartolini worked in Volterra, the centre of the Italian alabaster-carving industry, for the French sculptor Barthélemy Corneille (c. 1760–1812), making vases and other decorative vessels. When Bartolini, a committed Bonapartist, accompanied the former Emperor into his first exile, on the island of Elba in 1814, he was asked by Napoleon to provide designs for vases and bowls for his new residence. One of Bartolini’s major patrons was William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858), who commissioned from the sculptor not only statues and portraits, but also decorative objects, including in 1819 an ‘exact copy of the Medici Vase’ (Yarrington 2014: p. 61). A couple of years later he acquired from Bartolini what the Duke called ‘a beautiful marble tazza for £35’; there are today in the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth two marble tazze or bowls made by him (Yarrington 2014, pp. 63-67, fig. 3). These relate very closely to a design for a tazza by Bartolini, one of a series of design drawings for vases, mostly in the Museo Civico in Prato (Bartolini 1978, pp. 199-201, nos. 10-16; Bartolini 2011, pp. 196-99, no. 10). An enormous marble tazza left unfinished by Bartolini, known from a photograph in the Bardini archive, had very similar scrolling decoration to that seen on the baluster stem of the Londonderry tazza (Melloni Franceschini 2014, p. 196, fig. 1). Other decorative works that have been attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini include a large copy of the Borghese vase sold at Sotheby’s (6 July 2017, lot 154). It would seem entirely feasible that this refined carving should have been made by Lorenzo Bartolini for the Londonderrys, who used their wealth to buy sculpture at the top end of the market. The sculpture at Londonderry House seems to have been the work of a very small number of contemporary European sculptors - as well as Bartolini, Antonio Canova, Antonio Trentanove (c. 1745-1812) and John Gibson (1790-1866), so this fact too makes an attribution of the tazza to the workshop of Bartolini inherently more likely. Although the main commissions from the Marquess of Londonderry to Lorenzo Bartolini came in 1823, the family seems to have continued to have dealings with the sculptor. The name ‘Londondri’ appears in a summary note of Bartolini’s accounts for 1848, unfortunately with no further information on what Lord Londonderry had paid for in that year (Meloni Franceschini 2014, p. 205, note 16). Jeremy Warren July 2022
Provenance
Given to the National Trust by Lady Mairi Bury (1921-2009), in 1976.
Makers and roles
attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini (Vernio, Tuscany 1777 – Florence 1850), sculptor Italian School, sculptor
References
Tinti 1936 Mario Tinti, Lorenzo Bartolini, 1936, II, p. 20. Bartolini 1978: Lorenzo Bartolini. Mostra delle attività di tutela, exh. cat. Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, Florence 1978, pp. 199-201, nos. 10-16 Bartolini 2011: Franca Falletti, Silvestra Bietoletti and Annarita Caputo, eds., Lorenzo Bartolini. Scultore del bello naturale, exh.cat. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence 2011, pp. 196-99, no. 10. Melloni Franceschini 2014: Silvia Melloni Franceschini, ‘L’eredità Bartolini: le carte acquisite dalla Galleria dell’Accademia’ in Lorenzo Bartolini. Atti delle Giornate di Studio. Firenze 18-19 febbraio 2013, Pistoia 2014, pp. 196-208. Yarrington 2014: Alison Yarrington, ‘”A constellation of the most beautiful forms”: Bartolini’s sculpture at Chatsworth’ in Lorenzo Bartolini. Atti delle Giornate di Studio. Firenze 18-19 febbraio 2013, Pistoia 2014, pp. 61-69