St. Rose of Lima

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 21

Inventory

PV 01210

Material and technique

Terracotta/ patina

Author

Melchiorre Caffà (1635/1638-1667)

Dating

c. 1663-1664

Dimensions

14.7 x 26 cm.

Origin

Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo (1920)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

This is a preparatory terracotta study for the statue of St. Rose of Lima with an angel, a marble commissioned by Clement IX for the order of the Predicatores de la Ciudad de los Reyes and installed in the cathedral of Santo Domingo in Lima. The commission was perhaps made between 1663 and 1664, after which various drawings and models were made before work on the marble continued until 1667. The statue remained, still incomplete, in the studio of Ercole Ferrata until 1669, when it was finished and shipped. It arrived at Callao in 1670, and was triumphantly transported, with great Spanish ceremony, to the tomb of St. Rosa, of the Third Order of St. Dominic, who was beatified on 15 April 1688. Once attributed to Bernini (Santangelo 1954), the study was re-ascribed to Caffà by Preimesberger (1969).

Maria Giulia Barberini 

Bibliography

A. Santangelo (ed.), Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, p. 91; R. Preimesberger, Ein Bozzetto Melchiorre Caffas, in "Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte", XXII, 1969, p. 178-183; E.B. Di Gioia, Un bronzetto della Santa Rosa da Lima di Melchiorre Caffà nel Museo di Roma, in "Bollettino dei Musei Comunali di Roma", I, NS, 1987, pp. 39-53; M.G. Barberini (ed.), Sculture in terracotta del Barocco romano. Bozzetti e modelli del Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, exh. cat., Rome 1991, p. 46; S. M. G. Barberini, P. Cannata and S. E. Zuraw (eds.), Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture from the Palazzo Venezia, catalogo della mostra, Athens 1996, pp. 72-73, O. Ferrari e S. Papaldo, Le sculture del Seicento a Roma, Roma 1999, p. 504; St. Rose of Lima, in B. Boucher, Earth and Fire, Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, exh. cat., New Haven and London 2001, pp. 210-211, no. 51; E. B. Di Gioia, Le collezioni di sculture del museo di Roma, cat., Rome 2002, pp. 165-175; P. Cannata, Melchiorre Caffà. Estasi di Santa Rosa da Lima, in G. Morello (a cura di), in Visioni ed estasi. Capolavori dell'arte europea tra Seicento e Settecento, catalogo della mostra, Milano 2003, p. 229, fig. p. 158, no. 66; Le Martyre de Saint Eustache, in A. Tarantino (ed.), Rome 1660. L' Explosion Baroque, exh. cat., Paris 2008, pp. 80 and 84, no. 29; S. Guido-G. Mantella, Melchiorre Cafà Insigne modellatore. La Natività, l'Adorazione dei Pastori ed altre opere in cera, Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro), 2010, pp. 12-13.