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

38M Doccia porcelain manufactory. The Three Fates, ca. 1750. Hard-paste
porcelain. Private collection, Florence.

In the same way that Giovanni Battista Foggini

reused models of figures for different bronzes, slightly

changing the position of the limbs as needed, Doccia

craftsmen recombined elements from different models—

occasionally by different artists—to create new compo­

sitions. For example, Foggini's Medusa reappears as

Beauty in his Rape of Beauty by Time.^6 In like manner

Doccia craftsmen chose Foggini's Three Fates to create

the table centerpiece discussed here as well as to orna­

ment the spandrels of Doccia's large Temple of the

Glories of Tuscany porcelain group in the Museo del-

l'Accademia Etrusca, Cortona, where they are allegorical

figures,-^7 and Foggini's Perseus was combined with Mas-

similiano Soldani-Benzi's Andromeda for the Doccia

Perseus and Andromeda porcelain group.^8

Notes

1. For information on the Doccia factory see Ginori Lisci 1963; Lane 1954,-
   Le Corbeiller 1985. A version of Mercury and Argus (in a private collec­
   tion), made from the same model but not polychrome (i.e., in white),
   was recently exhibited in Lucca (Lucca 2001, 215, no. 154).


2. The bronzes are described in the 1713 inventory of Grand Prince Ferdi­
   nand de' Medici. Two bronze versions of the Mercury group (Museo
   Nazionale del Bargello, Florence [with sword intact], and another for­
   merly on the Paris art market, present location unknown) and one of the
   Perseus group exist (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge).
   For the Mercury group see Lankheit 1962, fig. 122; Bargello 1989, 26,
   no. 20. For the Perseus group see Metropolitan 1969, no. 78); Heim
   Gallery 1980, no. 36. The late Leonardo Ginori Lisci thought, and Jen­
   nifer Montagu currently concurs, that the composition of Mercury and
   Argus derived, at least in part, and as was common for the artist, from a
   print by Antonio Tempesta (Buffa 1984, 37: no. 647 [151]; see Detroit
   1974 , 416-17, no. 244).


3. Under the date September 9, 1749, in the Florentine Archivio Ginori
   Lisci are the entries regarding payments made to Vincenzo Foggini "per
   gettare di cera il gruppo di Perseo e Medusa" and "per gettare di cera...
   il gruppo di Mercurio che taglia la testa ad Argo" (C. R. 1749-50), which
   refer to the creation of the original wax models for the Getty groups.
   The models, and the molds taken from them, are also listed in the 1780
   inventory of the Doccia factory—where they remain today—as
   "Gruppo di Perseo che taglia la testa a Medusa. Di Gio. Batta. Foggini in
   cera con forma" and "Gruppo di Mercurio che taglia la testa a Argo. Di.
   Gio. Batta. Foggini in cera con forma" (Lankheit 1982, 121, nos. 22:16,
   22:18, figs. 131-32).


4. Private collection (see Melegati 1996, fig. 3; and Lucca 2001, 216,
   no. 155).


5. Lankheit 1982, 160 (87:2) and fig. 232. These figures were also used for
   representations of the parts of the world on the renowned 1756 Doccia
   group of the Temple Dedicated to the Glories of Tuscany, now in the
   Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca, Cortona (see Ginori Lisci 1973, pi. 38).


6. Lankheit 1982, fig. 128.


7. Liverani 1967, fig. 22; Morazzoni i960.


8. Liverani 1967, pi. 36; Morazzoni i960, 2: pi. 248, where it is attributed
   to Piamontini.

Candelabra 221