“La stanza dei modelli. Sculture restaurate dal Museo Ginori”
Through the exhibition of forty-four precious sculptural models from the 17th and 18th centuries collected by Carlo Ginori, the first exhibition organized after the establishment of the Fondazione Ginori tells a largely unpublished chapter in the history of the Manifattura di Doccia.
Through the exhibition of forty-four precious sculptural models from the 17th and 18th centuries collected by Carlo Ginori, the first exhibition organized after the establishment of the Fondazione Ginori tells a largely unpublished chapter in the history of the Manifattura di Doccia.
From December 21, 2021 to June 21, 2022
Villa Medicea La Petraia, Florence
Curated by Giulia Basilissi and Giulia Coco with the collaboration of Rita Balleri, Livia Frescobaldi and Oliva Rucellai, the exhibition “La stanza dei modelli. Sculture restaurate dal Museo Ginori” is the first exhibition co-organized by the Direzione regionale Musei della Toscana – Villa medicea La Petraia, the Associazione Amici di Doccia and the newly established Fondazione Museo Archivio Ginori della Manifattura di Doccia.
In the recently restored rooms of Villa La Petraia (a magnificent Medici and Lorraine residence, now a state museum), forty-four sculptural models in wax, terracotta, and plaster are exhibited. These represent a fundamental, though largely unknown, aspect of the cultural heritage of the Manifattura di Doccia and the oldest corpus of the Museo Ginori collection.
the fruit of the collecting activity “for factory use” by Marquis Carlo Ginori, who purchased them to create porcelain reproductions for sale, is a precious testimony to the history of late Baroque Florentine sculpture and an inexhaustible source of information on the modus operandi of the Manifattura di Doccia’s artists and the techniques they employed.
Over the years, this valuable heritage suffered repeated damage due partly to use and time, and partly to neglect following the bankruptcy of Richard-Ginori. The exhibition “La stanza dei modelli” crowns an important restoration campaign of twenty-eight wax works, four plaster works, and twelve terracotta pieces, selected among those most in urgent need of recovery intervention.
Among the works on display, particular attention is deserved by the terracotta depicting the Bacchino ebbro, a work by one of the greatest bronze masters of late Baroque Florence, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi. The group, a superb example of late 17th-century sculptural art, is presented here to the public for the first time. Also exhibited for the first time is the bas-relief with the Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna, following patient restoration that has made it possible to recover and reassemble its various fragments, thus restoring legibility to the work.
