Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Italian Sculpture

2016; Oxford University Press; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jhc/fhw040

1477-8564

R. M. Wenley,

Aesthetic Perception and Analysis

As is conceded in the opening pages of this handsomely produced and brilliantly researched publication, sculpture is unlikely to be the foremost category in most people’s perception of the Wallace Collection – and Italian sculpture even less so. But amid the many remarkable ancien régime treasures, old master paintings and arms and armour for which this museum is so justly famous, the surprisingly diverse and often excellent Italian sculptures hold their own. Highlights include superlative works by Giovanni Fonduli (no. 48), Riccio (no. 49, a sensational rediscovery), Torrigiani (no. 14), Giambologna (no. 113), Ferdinando Tacca (nos 118–119), and Giovanni Mazzaroli (no. 133). This last, an exhaustively documented Venetian cannon, is one of a number of sculpted objects that have crept in from the arms and armour collection. All these masterpieces date from between about 1490 and 1690; arguably the only later sculpture of importance is a marble Cupid and Psyche group by Filippo della Valle (no. 140; c.1730), long attributed to the French sculptor Claude-Auguste Cayot thanks to a misleading false signature.