This unpublished statuette, which came from the Wurts collection, depicts a plump, nude angel with small wings. As the movement of the body and the windswept hair suggest, the angel is in flight, and would have originally held a scroll or another object in its hands. It was, in all likelihood, part of a nativity scene, where it would have been hung with two hooks, now broken, on the reverse, or attached to a pin on the left knee (where a hole is visible); the style of the angel is characteristic of Neapolitan sculpture of the first half of the 18th century. The inventory indicates that the statuette was related to another angel in the museum, with inv. no. PV 9217/301, now lost. It is in reasonable condition, though it is missing the thumb of the left hand and the left arm has been re-attached.

Grazia Maria Fachechi