Marble plinth for David (after Gian Lorenzo Bernini)
Carlo Fossi
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1901
Materials
Marble
Place of origin
Rome
Collection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 516660.2
Summary
Marble plinth with inset marble relief of David triumphant over the body of Goliath, holding the giant's severed head, and three inset slate plaques by David Kindersley; two with Lord Fairhaven's monogram under a baron's coronet, the fourth inscribed '2/ June/ 1953', the date of Elizabeth II’s Coronation. Accompanying marble statue of David, Carlo Fossi (Italian, active late 19th-early 20th century) after Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Naples 1598 - Rome 1680), 1901.
Full description
The original marble was the third of Bernini’s great sculptures for Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633), all still in the Villa Borghese (it was preceded by Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius and the Rape of Proserpina). Bernini’s own plinth for the David was irregular, with the lyre projecting beyond it, and the toes of David’s right foot gripping the edge of it, to increase the sense of torsion and motion. This effect was lost, when it was bulked out with plaster, to fit the new pedestal created for it in 1910. Very little is known about Carlo Fossi. The English inscription on this copy suggests that Fossi was affiliated with one of a number of Italian workshops making replicas of celebrated Roman sculptures for European and American markets at the turn of the 20th century. Signed works by Carlo Fossi include a full-size marble copy of the Rape of Proserpina after Bernini at the Museo Bellver, Seville, and a copy of Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix after Antonio Canova in the Villa Borghese (Christie's, The Collector: Silver, 19th Century Furniture, Sculpture & Works of Art, London, sale 14227, lot 590). Alice Rylance-Watson 2019
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Carlo Fossi, sculptor after Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Naples 1598 – Rome 1680), sculptor