Head of a Moor

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 21

Inventory

PV 10378

Material and technique

Terracotta/ patina

Author

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)

Dating

c. 1653

Dimensions

11.5x10.8 cm.

Origin

Gorga Collection (1948)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

This work depicts a Head of a Moor and was made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini to study the physiognomy and expression of the central figure for the fountain in Piazza Navona, called, indeed, the Moor. The maquette is modelled with rapid strokes and its most prominent parts, such as the hair, the flat nose and the lips, seem almost to have been executed separately and added later. Some cracks, caused during firing, are clear around the nose and the back of the head, and a gap can be seen in the upper right hand part of the hair. The face of the “black satyr”, as Fraschetti (1990) labelled him, together with his frowning expression framed by the thick curls of his beard, and his windswept hair, gives the impression of “feverish and vibrant movement in the whole head” (Angelini 1999). The work came from the collection of Evan Gorga and was published by Brinkmann (1923) and then by Hermanin (1948) who assigned it to Bernini, correctly associating it with “the smaller fountain in Piazza Navona, in front of Palazzo Doria Pamphili”. Its place in Bernini’s oeuvre has not been questioned and subsequent studies have focused instead on the terracotta’s place in the genesis, and various phases of work, of the fountain.

Cristiano Giometti 

Bibliography

A. E. Brinckmann, Barock-Bozzetti: Italienische Bildhauer, Frankfurt am Main 1923, I, p. 57; V. Mariani, Bozzetti berniniani, in "Bollettino d'arte", (1929-1930), pp. 59-65; A. Riccoboni, Roma nell'arte. La scultura nell'evo moderno dal Quattrocento ad oggi, Rome 1942, p. 161; H. Hermanin, Il Palazzo di Venezia, Rome 1948, p. 279; A. Santangelo (ed.), Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo dell sculture, Rome 1954, p. 92; C. D'Onofrio, Acque e fontane di Roma, Rome 1977, p. 505; U. Schlegel, Die italienischen Bildwerke des 17. und 18. jahrhunderts, Berlin 1978, pp. 10-13; 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. 40; S. Andosov (ed.), Alle origini di Canova. Le terrecotte della collezione Farsetti, exh. cat., Venice 1991, p. 60-61; A. Angelini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Bozzetto per la testa del "moro", in M. G. Bernardini and M. Fagiolo dell'Arco (eds.), Gian Lorenzo Bernini regista del Barocco, exh. cat., Milan 1999, n. 120, p. 382; O. Ferrari and S. Papaldo, Le sculture del Seicento a Roma, Rome 1999, p. 503