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The Ecstasy of St. Philip Neri

Object belonging: One's own
Category: Terracotta sculpture
City: Rome
Location: Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia
Specific location: Room 21
Inventory: PV 01192
Material and technique: Terracotta
Author: Domenico Guidi (1625-1701)
Dating: c. 1690-1693
Dimensions: 35.5 x 25.5 x 12.5 cm.
Origin: Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo (1920)
Image copyright: SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

Between 1691 and 1693, Domenico Guido sculpted the statue depicting St. Philip Neri, which was designed to decorate the main altar of the Oratorian church in Genoa. The small-scale model of this work, the final version of which was only completed in 1703 (cat. 50.S), is held at Palazzo Venezia; the work came from Castel Sant’Angelo and can be dated with reasonable certainty between the end of 1690 and the beginning of 1691. Its overall condition is good, though the right hand and the head have been restored. The saint, in the grey-reddish colour of the clay, wearing sacred vestments, rises unsteadily to his feet, on a celestial pedestal, in the shape of swirling clouds. Neri is shown at the moment of the most intense mystical rapture, with his arms open and his head tilted backwards as he gazes skyward. He is held by a winged angel while a putto, seated at his feet, raises his right hand to give him a lily, while holding a book open in his left. The elegant lines and decorative nature of the work prevail over corporeal form, prefiguring typically 18th century tastes.

Cristiano Giometti

Bibliography

A Riccoboni, Roma nell'arte. La scultura nell'evo moderno dal Quattrocento a oggi, Rome 1942, p. 183; F. Hermanin, Il Palazzo di Venezia, Rome 1948, p. 279; A. Santangelo, Il Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, p. 82; Entwürfe Pierre Legros' für Filippo Juvarras Cappella Antamoro, in "Römische Historische Mitteilungen" 10, (1967), pp. 212-213; D. L. Bershad, Un bozzetto di Domencio Guidi a Palazzo Venezia, in "Arte Illustrata", VI, 55-56, (1973), pp. 384-385; U. Schlegel, Bozzetti in Terracotta by Pietro Stefano Monnot, in "Boston Museum Bulletin", LXXII, 367 (1974) pp. 61, 67-68 nn. 10-16; J. Montagu, Alessandro Algardi and the Statue of St. Philip Neri, in "Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammulngen", XXII (1977), p. 99; F. Souchal, French sculptors of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The reign of Louis XIV, Oxford 1981, p. 291; S. Androsov (ed.), Alle origini di Canova. Le terrecotte della collezione Farsetti, exh. cat., Roma 1991, p. 60; M. G. Barberini, S. Filippo Neri, in "Roma 1995", p. 538-539; A. Bacchi, Scultura del '600 a Roma, Milano 1996, p. 812; O. Ferrari and S. Papaldo, Le sculture del '600 a Roma, Rome 1999, p. 507; A. Pampalone, La "Pentecoste" di San Filippo Neri. Iconografia e iconologia, in M. T. Bonadonnarusso and N. Del Re (eds.), San Filippo Neri nella reatà romana del XVI secolo, Rome 2000, p. 166; C. Giometti, Levitazione di san Filippo Neri, in "Roma 2003", p. 232

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