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

38K After Giovanni Battista Foggini. Mercury and Argus. Wax model from
the Doccia porcelain manufactory. Museo di Doccia, inv. D 358 [41 ].

38L Giovanni Battista Foggini (Italian, 1652-1725). Perseus Slaying

Medusa, ca. 1690. Bronze, 40 x 38.1 x 22.2 cm (15^3 A x 15 x 83 /4 in.).

Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Annie Swan Coburn Fund.

might seem an odd choice for dining table ornament.

However, rather than emphasizing the grisliness of the

scenes, the compositions depict Argus and Medusa not

as monsters but as a man and woman in distress, thereby

emphasizing the drama rather than the horror. A closely

related work is the Doccia group of the Three Fates (fig.

38M),^4 produced around the same time. Although its can­

dle-socket urns are missing, the base is identical to the

bases of the two Getty groups, as are the paste quality

and palette. It seems likely that the three figure groups

would have belonged to the same table centerpiece. Pay­

ment was made to Vincenzo Foggini in 1749 for wax

models of Mercury and Argus (fig. 3 8K) and of Perseus

and Medusa and in 1750 for the figures of the Three

Fates.^5

220 Candelabra