17
Bust of Christ
Montelupo
ca. 1500
Tin-glazed earthenware
H: 60.3 cm (23^3 A in.)
W: 59.7 cm (23 Vi in.)
D: 26 cm (IO^1 /A in.)
87.SE.14 8
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
None.
CONDITION
Minor cracks and glaze faults; proper right tip of
the beard is chipped; some original gilding has
worn off the neck of the tunic and the base; the
crown displays holes into which thorns, possibly
of wood or ivory, may have been inserted.^1 The
bust underwent thermoluminescence analysis in
1986 that indicated that the material is consistem
with the expected age of the object (i.e., that
the material was last fired between 370 and
570 years ago).PROVENANCE
Private collection, Belgium (sold, Sotheby's, Lon
don, April 7, 1987, lot 44, to R. Zietz); [RainerZietz, Ltd., London, sold to the J. Paul Getty Mu
seum, 1987].EXHIBITIONS
None.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burlington Magazine 129 (March 1987): i;
II giornale dell'arte, no. 45 (1987): 90, fig. 50;
GettyMusJ 16 (1988): 180, no. 77; Hess 1988A,
no. 16; Fusco 1997, 67; Summary Catalogue
2001, no. 356.THIS SCULPTURE IS A BUST OF CHRIST CROWNED with
thorns. Like devotional images of the subject in other
media, the bust is half-length, terminating above the el
bows and through the chest. As befits this image of
Christ before his accusers after being scourged, his face
is drawn and gaunt and his bearing is righteous. Presum
ably the sculpture was intended for an intimate devo
tional setting such as a private chapel.
Christ's long curling hair lies flat against his head,
closely following the shape of his head, neck, and shoul
ders. He wears a tunic decorated with finely drawn geo
metric patterns and a cloak over his left shoulder. His
eyebrows, eyes, and beard are painted with thin, blackish
blue lines; the crown of thorns is painted with a mixture
of the same dark cobalt pigment and emerald green. The
neck of the tunic and the low, plinthlike base have been
cold-gilded, and much of this gilding has worn away. The
back of this bust is finished in a simple, unsculptural
manner. Here, rather than naturalistically modeled, the
hair is hastily rendered with incised lines, and the crown
of thorns is linked at the back with a painted cobalt loop.
This remarkable work possesses a sculptural force
and sophistication almost never found in maiolica.
Although the artist is unknown, the incisive depiction
of a taut and sinewy face displaying a proud, almost
haughty demeanor can be most closely compared to the
work of late fifteenth-century Tuscan sculptors such as
Lorenzo Vecchietta (1412-80), Matteo Civitali (1436-
1501), Andrea Sansovino (ca. 1460-1529),^2 Andrea del
Verrocchio (i435?-i488), and the so-called Master of the
Marble Madonnas (fl. ca. 1470-1500). Like the Museum's
example in maiolica, busts of Christ by these artists are
vigorously modeled and depict Christ with curling hair,
parted beard, and a crown of thorns (sometimes pierced
with holes, perhaps to hold thorns made of another ma
terial), and always with an air of authority.^3
Although many of the above-named sculptors pro
duced busts in terra-cotta, sometimes polychromed,
only a Bust of Christ attributed to Sansovino in a private
Aretine collection is of glazed earthenware, or maiolica
(fig. 17E). This work displays a similar noble gaze, long
and curling hair, and plain white glaze ground, with only
a few details (eyes and eyebrows) picked out with thin
dark blue lines as in the Getty Museum's example, al
though it has a gentler and less powerful aspect.^4
Maiolica busts of Christ probably influenced by
Verrocchio and produced in the Florentine della Robbia
workshop also exist, although they differ considerably in
sculptural style and decoration from the present work.^5
It does appear that the Getty bust resulted from the
collaboration of a sculptor and ceramist. From the un
derside one learns that the basic form of the bust was
built using coils of clay of varying lengths that were at
tached to one another and smoothed together on the ex
terior surface (fig. 17c). This method is one of the most
basic and widespread of all pottery-building techniques,
and one must assume that a potter was responsible for
this phase of manufacture. However, the important job96