Italian Ceramics: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection

28

Bust of a Man

Girolamo della Robbia (1488-1566)

Florence or southern France

1526-3 5

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 46.4 cm (18 lA in.)

W: 40 cm (i5^3 /4 in.)

D: 19.7 cm (7^3 A in.)

95.sc.21

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
None.

CONDITION
There is a loss to the bottom left portion of the

nose that has been repaired and several smaller

losses to the beard, mouth, ear, and curls. A fine

crack runs 24.1 cm diagonally from the top of the

head to the proper left side. Two small angular

protrusions at the back of the head have been col­

ored with a grayish violet glaze, possibly indicat­

ing the color of the background medallion into

which the bust was set; an iron bolt set into the

bottom of the bust during manufacture must have

been part of the original mounting system. The

bust underwent two thermoluminescence analyses

in 1995, returning results that the material is con­

sistent with the expected age of the object (i.e.,

that the material was last fired between 315 and

615 years ago).

PROVENANCE

Commissioned by Jacques, called Galiot, de

Gourdon de Genouillac, Chateau d'Assier, near

Figeac, in the south of France; remained in situ on

the courtyard facade of Chateau d'Assier under

successive owners, until the late eighteenth cen­

tury; Plantade printing house, Cahors, from the

1860s until at least 1902,-^1 [Guy Ladriere, Paris,

sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995].

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vitry and Briere [1904-11] 1969, 13, pi. 42, no. 3;

Gentilini 1992 , 2: 366-67; Burlington Magazine

13 6 (September 1994): ill. x; "Acquisitions/1995,"

GettyMusf 24 (1996): 136, no. 85; Crepin-Leblond

1996 , 16; Bassett and Fogelman 1997, 42; Fusco

1997, 42; Alfredo Bellandi in Gentilini 1998, 306;

Peggy Fogelman in Masterpieces 1998, 24; Fogel­

man and Fusco 2002, no. 4.

BUST OF A MAN DEPICTS A HANDSOME BEARDED male

dressed in Roman-style armor and drapery, rendered in

three-quarter relief. Turning his head slightly to the

right, he appears to look up from underneath his expres­

sively modeled brow. The entire front surface of the bust

has been colored with a white glaze, perhaps in imitation

of marble, except for the pupils of the eyes, which were

painted black.

Paul Vitry and Gaston Briere first identified a group

of six busts, including the Getty Bust of a Man, as com­

ing from the Chateau d'Assier and attributed them to

Girolamo della Robbia.^2 This provenance and attribution

have been accepted by Giancarlo Gentilini and Alfredo

Bellandi.^3 The Getty bust and another of the group, a

white-glazed terra-cotta bust of a beardless male fig­

ure, crowned and draped in a toga, now owned by Marvin

and Jacqueline Kosofski in Los Angeles (fig. 28E), were

both in the same Paris collection in 1995.^4 The other

busts published by Vitry and Briere are a white-glazed

terra-cotta bust, now lost, of a young man in classical ar­

mor with abundant curly hair,-^5 a draped male bust in

stone, crowned with a laurel wreath and set into a round

medallion, acquired by the Louvre in 19io; a bust of a

woman with braided hair and a draped chest, cast in re­

constituted stone, which was acquired by the Louvre in

1936;^6 and a stone bust of a man wearing elaborate armor

and a feathered helmet, also set into a medallion, now

lost.^7 A male bust, presumably in stone, is set into a

wreathed medallion and is still in situ on the courtyard

wall of the Chateau d'Assier's west wing.^8 Another work

that has been related to the Assier group is a white-glazed

terra-cotta bust of a woman in the Yale University Art

Gallery, New Haven (fig. 28F), which is identical to the fe­

male bust in the Louvre.^9

Although an exact identification of subject cannot

be found for every bust in this group, the crowned man

in a toga and the curly-haired youth in armor appear to

represent, respectively, Constantine and Alexander the

Great. This, along with the classicizing or military

nature of the costumes, suggests that the series as a

whole depicted legendary figures of the ancient world.

The classical armor of the Getty bust indicates that it

too was intended to portray a Roman or Gallic hero.

The building of the Chateau d'Assier, near Figeac, in

southern France, was begun in 1524 by Jacques, called

Galiot, de Gourdon de Genouillac, and its decoration

commenced in 1526 after his appointment as grand

ecuyer to Francis I.^10 An inscription of 1535 marks the

completion of construction. According to a watercolor

by Francois-Roger de Gaigneres of about 1680, the

chateau was designed as a large quadrangular edifice

with a central courtyard and round towers punctuating

160