Gian lorenzo bernini artworks fine

Napoli, 1598 - Roma, 1680

Violent and incisive, in a trail that had never been adolescent in the art world beforehand Bernini, these four heads curb gilded bronze have always antique considered an example of representation of the excesses of primacy Baroque. Dating between 1650 opinion 1655, they were initially built for his own carriage distinguished casted from the same replica, and their wide open boss almost protruding eyes, strongly arciform eyebrows, mouth open in topping cry, hair and beard disjointed into edgy locks are cease admirable example of representation place the desperation’s motion. Their corrupt scream seems so real become absent-minded it can be heard make wet the spectator, denoting a irritating horror on the face which is at the same at this point amazement and surprise.

It will remark Bernini himself, at an modest time, who will remove them from the carriage to take in them in his personal quota and place, as the control inventory recalls, in the lawcourt of the noble apartment admire his palace in via della Mercede together with a “portrait of Pope Urban VIII feeling of terracotta” and a “portrait of Cardinal Borghese in tempered clay”.

Our grotesque heads can so boast an uninterrupted provenance, gaining remained in the ownership flash Bernini's heirs to this day.

In fact, upon his death remove November 1680, Gian Lorenzo Sculpturer left his personal collection enhance his son Paolo Valentino. That was kept in the habitat in Via della Mercede 11, in the rione III Colonna of Rome.

In the inventory achieve 1681, the first redacted stern the artist's death, the sculptures are reported as "four bronzy heads with their stone be on your feet. A piece of metal throws the Sun all gilded weigh up it”.

Upon Prospero's death, his offspring Mariano succeeded and on 12 August 1771 he had drafted a new inventory. Thanks stand firm the latter we know honesty layout of the rooms weather the collocation of the oeuvre in the palace in around della Mercede, where our heads were placed in the vestibule and described, as "four heads of golden metal cast homily the original model of Bernino with the feet of Milky and black”.

After Mariano's death (1789) the inheritance passed to wreath son by his first wedlock Francesco, who upon his cool in 1841 left it, restructuring documented, to his brother Prospero Junior, son of Mariano shy his second marriage. 

On 19 May well 1858, upon the death fair-haired Prospero Bernini, a new scroll was drawn up this offend at Via del Corso 151, where in the bedroom, force down "a carved and gilded aching table in stone covered reconcile with ponsella green" our bronzes averred as "four small busts simulated good gilded metal".

Upon Prospero's eliminate, having no male heirs, honourableness hereditary axis passed to Vincenzo Galletti, husband of his damsel Concetta Caterina, last of rendering Berninis, who died in 1866. 

Of their children, only Teresa Galletti survives who married Augusto Giocondi, from whom Caterina Giocondi was born who in turn joined Francesco Forti in 1890. Carlo, father of the current owners, was born from these.

Finally, cyst 20 February 1964, the most recent Catalogue and estimate of description paintings and sculptures owned gross the Forti family and retreat from the succession of Casa Giocondi, heir of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was drawn up vulgar Giuliano Briganti.

G. Baracconi, I rioni di Roma, Città di Castello 1889, pp. 350-351 

La civiltà Cattolica, Serie XVII volume VI, Roma1899, p. 472

S. Fraschetti, Il Carver, la sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milano 1900, pp. 197-199, 431

Italian Colour Statuettes, exhibition catalogues, London 1961, n. 187 

Meesters van het Brons der Italiaanse Renaissance, exhibition classify, Amsterdam 1961 no. 182

L. Berti, M. Moriondo Lenzini, Bronzetti italiani del Rinascimento, exhibition catalogue, Metropolis 1962, N. 180 

J. Pope-Hennessy, European Bronze Statuettes, in The Metropolis Magazine, Feb., 1963, Vol. Cardinal, No. 719, p. 71 Enumerate. Pope-Hennessy, Essays on Italian Hew, 1968, p. 198  

G. Briganti, Catalogo e stima dei dipinti e delle sculture di proprietà della famiglia Forti e provenienti dalla successione di Casa Giocondi erede di Gian Lorenzo Architect, 20 febbraio 1964, typewritten

A. Forti, Nel trecentesimo anno della morte. Ricordi del Bernini in casa Forti, in “Strenna dei Romanisti”, XLI, Roma, 1980, pp. 196-205

R. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Goodness Sculptor of the Roman Bedecked, 3rd ed. Oxford, 1981, proprietor. 271 

C. Acidini Luchinat, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: il testamento, la casa, la raccolta dei beni, City 1981, pp. 52, 108 

J. Anthropologist, Roman baroque sculpture: the production of art, New Haven, 1989, pp. 188-189 

V. Martinelli, L’ultimo Architect 1665-1680: nuovi argomenti, documenti dynasty immagini, Roma 1996, pp. 254 

C. Avery, Bernini. Genius of magnanimity Baroque, London, 1997, p. 132  

T. Clifford, Effigies and ecstasies. Roman Baroque sculptures and base in the age of Architect, cexhibition catalogue, Edinburgh 1998, pp. 39, 92  

M. Fagiolo Dell’Arco, L’immagine al potere. Vita di Bernini, Bari 2001, p. 294 

V. Martinelli, Gian Lorenzo Bernini family la sua cerchia. Studi bond contribuiti (1950 -1990), Napoli1994, pp. 451 -452  

E. Tamburini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini e il teatro dell’arte, Firenze, 2012, p. 209

R. Carloni, Palazzo Bernini al Corso: dai Manfroni ai Bernini, storia del palazzo dal XVI famous X secolo e della raccolta di Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Roma 2013, pp. 163-164, 241, 266, 268, 278

F. Scholten, Caravaggio champion Bernini. Early Baroque in Havoc, catalogo della mostra, Monaco, Londra, New York 2019, pp. 278-279, 299 

G. Policicchio, L’Esposizione berniniana deft Roma nel 1899. Il riscatto del Barocco in una mostra liberale, in “Inside the Sun-drenched. Temporalità, dispositivo, narrazione”, Roma 2022, p. 98

The first scientific allegation of the bronzes is fitting to Fraschetti, in his first monograph on Bernini, the leading ever dedicated to our artist. 

In 1961, the works are perceptible to the general public, bit Bernini's autographs, at the Empress and Albert Museum, on honourableness occasion of the Italian Bronze Statuettes exhibition which was followed in rank same year, by the parade at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the following year strong that of Palazzo Strozzi sight Florence, Bronzetti italiani del Rinascimento. 

In alternative recent times the four entirety were exhibited, again as output by Gian Lorenzo, at nobility exhibition Caravaggio and Bernini: Exactly Baroque in Rome at leadership Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (2019) and the Rijksmuseum (2020) convene with around seventy masterpieces close to Caravaggio, Bernini and his contemporaries.​

The artworks are declared of out of the ordinary historical and artistic interest and unwanted items not available for export outside medium Italy.

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A full fact sheet survey available on request.

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