Dimitrios Zikos

This publication discusses a bronze Laocoön recently sold at Bonham’s. Its new owners attributed it to Giuseppe Piamontini (1663–1744) ‘because of its manufacture and its extremely close proximity to the Doccia model’, the model employed for a porcelain Laocoön produced in the factory set up by Carlo Ginori (1702–57) in 1737 at Doccia near Florence. Labelled as French and belatedly returned to Late Baroque Florence (but to the wrong artist), this magnificent group has finally revealed its identity. It is one of the incunabula of an ambitious young sculptor measuring himself with the sculptors of Ancient Greece and their great Renaissance followers of his native Florence. During the day he copied them in the Galleria degli Uffizi and in the streets of the city. At night he gathered together with other pupils of Foggini in the Borgo Pinti studio to study together. The prominent career to which Della Valle obviously aspired prompted his move to Rome. Della Valle helped us interpret the bronze correctly, interpret correctly its attribution in the Doccia models’ inventory and by extension understand better that document itself. But most important, our understanding of Florentine Late Baroque sculpture and of Della Valle’s art has acquired another firm point of reference.

This richly illustrated and beautifully produced scholarly catalog of the superlative collection of Renaissance and Baroque bronze figurative statuettes from the Hill Collection, accompanies an exhibition of the collection at The Frick Collection, New York opening late January 2014. Spanning the 15th through the 18th century, the sculptures presented are of exceptional quality and exemplify the bronze statue or statuette from its beginnings in Renaissance Italy to its dissemination across the artistic centers of Europe. The Hill Collection is distinguished by rare, autograph masterpieces by Italian sculptors such as Andrea Riccio and Giambologna, and has the most important collection of Baroque bronzes by Giuseppe Piamontini in the world. Its holding of works by the Giambologna school - the strongest found in any single collection, with the sole exception of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence - evokes the splendor of the late Renaissance courts, while the richness of the international Baroque is represented by religious sculptures by Alessandro Algardi, northern bronzes by Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard, and a remarkable assemblage of French 17th- and early 18th-century bronzes in the classical mode, by Barthelemy Prieur and from the circle of Ponce Jacquiot. The Hill Collection reveals the range of artistry, invention and technical refinement characteristic of sculptures created when the tradition of the European statuette was at its height. The catalog includes detailed biographies of each of the artists represented, and it introduced with essays by the distinguished authors. Patricia Wengraf is one of the world's leading dealers in bronzes, sculpture and works of art, and in her particular specialty, bronzes of the 15th-18th centuries, her knowledge and connoisseurship are if world repute. Denise Allen is Curator of Renaissance Paintings and Sculpture at the Frick Collection. Claudia Kryza-Gersch is Curator of Renaissance Sculpture at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Dimitrios Zikos is Curator at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. Rupert Harris is the leading conservator of metalwork and sculpture in the UK.