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I. Une matière multiple

Plaster sculpture between painting and architecture

La sculpture en plâtre, entre peinture et architecture
Eckart Marchand
p. 23-31

Résumés

Le plâtre a notablement contribué à rendre la sculpture accessible à un plus large public dans l’Italie de la Renaissance. On verra ici en quoi l’utilisation du plâtre par différents peintres et sculpteurs les a peut-être prédisposés à réaliser des œuvres qui ne seraient plus réservées aux élites. Cet article examine la fabrication, la vente et la perception des principales catégories d’œuvres en plâtre, notamment les reliefs de Vierge et l’Enfant, les moulages d’après d’autres artistes et les compositions profanes all antica. Le plâtre n’était pas le seul matériau employé pour ces sortes d’ouvrages, mais sa polyvalence et son usage répandu dans les ateliers des sculpteurs et des peintres lui ont conféré une importance particulière dans la production d’œuvres abordables. Sont évoquées ensuite les décorations en stuc, les sculptures de jardin et les utilisations du plâtre dans les architectures et les sculptures éphémères.

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Texte intégral

  • 1 Sénéchal, 2012.

1The polychrome stucco reliefs that stand at the centre of the present publication form part of a wider group of Renaissance works in plaster that is not as coherent as one might assume. Plaster is a cheap and versatile material that had manifold uses in sculpture, painting, and architecture, and there are essentially two types (gypsum and lime-based), a distinction I shall touch on towards the end. In Renaissance Italy, some sculptural works in plaster were produced by a mechanical casting process involving moulds that themselves were often made of plaster; others were modelled by hand. Once fully set, such objects could be manipulated further with saws, rasps or files. As regards surface treatment and outward appearance, probably only very few were left untreated or simply varnished so as to provide them with a protective outer skin. Rather, away from artists’ workshops, the majority of these works appear to have been patinated1 to look like bronzes, were gilded with gold leaf, or painted to look life-like. As a result, they did not betray their materiality to the beholder and would therefore have been difficult to distinguish from works in the sculptural materials they imitated through patination, or from other polychrome works, in wood, terracotta or papier mâché. It was the availability, cheapness and versatility of plaster as a material that allowed it to play an important role in making accessible sculptural products for those more modest, though by no means poor, parts of the Florentine society, for whom sculpture in marble or bronze was out of reach.

  • 2 Bartolomeo’s full name varies in the sources and secondary literature. Goldthwaite refers to him as (...)
  • 3 Goldthwaite, 1980, p. 403-404.

2The vestment-maker Bartolomeo di Lorenzo Berti may be seen as representative of this stratum of society. As a successful professional whose workshop was located on the Piazza della Signoria and who owned a house in the countryside, he acquired five moderately priced sculptures in 1520: from the goldsmith Vincenzio Finiguerra he bought on 16 April a St Jerome in terracotta, painted black to make it look like a bronze relief, and on 17 July he acquired from the painter Bernardo Rosselli a gilded plaster tondo depicting the Virgin [and Child]. On 6 September he added two more works to his possessions: a Mary Magdalen in terracotta, and a plaster relief of “nude men in battle”; there is no mention of their finish or who sold them to him, but one might safely assume that the Mary Magdalen was polychromed. Finally, on 23 November, he acquired from the painter Battista a painted, presumably polychrome, Pietà in terracotta2. In his book, The Building of Renaissance Florence, the economic historian Richard Goldthwaite takes Bartolomeo’s acquisitions as an indicator of the wide range of artistic production in 15th-century Florence that also succeeded in catering for members of the more modest social classes3. The works this banner-maker acquired provide a convenient starting point for a discussion of Florentine and Italian plaster works of the period and will form a point of reference to which I shall return regularly in the course of the present text.

  • 4 Bartolomeo paid 5 lire for the gilded plaster tondo of the Virgin, a similar price for the Pietà, a (...)
  • 5 For the techniques of Italian early Renaissance panel paintings and their grounds, see Dunkerton, F (...)
  • 6 In his treatise mentioned below, Cennino Cennini describes the making of pastiglia elements; Cennin (...)
  • 7 On this shield, see Wright, 2005, p. 296-298, 526-527; see also Malgouyres, 2015.

3Two of Bartolomeo’s sculptures were in plaster, three in terracotta; one was patinated in imitation of bronze, another was gilded, and two are likely to have been polychromed. All of them were cheap in comparison with tempera paintings or sculpture in marble, and where Bartolomeo mentions his sources, they do not include sculptors: he acquired one work from a goldsmith, and two works from painters4. Plaster was a material with which painters were well acquainted. In panel painting, gypsum was used for the ground that, applied in successive layers, covered the wooden panels and formed a continuous, elastic, and smooth white surface to which tempera paint and gilding could be applied. These grounds regularly extended over a picture’s frame, which often formed an integral part of a painting’s wooden structure5. Three-dimensional elements applied to the framework, such as profiles or small columns, were often modelled or moulded in plaster, work that is known as pastiglia and which was executed in the painter’s workshop6. A staggering example of pastiglia, one that transgresses the borders of painting and sculpture, is Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s shield representing Milos of Croton, in the Louvre7 (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Shield with Milos of Croton, 1470s, gilded and painted stucco on leather-covered wood, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Objets d’art, donation Godefroy Brauer (inv. OA 7381)

Fig. 1. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Shield with Milos of Croton, 1470s, gilded and painted stucco on leather-covered wood, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Objets d’art, donation Godefroy Brauer (inv. OA 7381)

© C2RMF/T. Clot.

  • 8 Cennini, 1960, p. 69-76 (for a description of how to apply a gesso ground), p. 130-131 (for casts o (...)
  • 9 On artists’ collections, see Marchand, 2007, p. 196-210, esp. 207.
  • 10 Vasari (Milanesi, ed.) 1906/reprint 1981, III, p. 384-386.
  • 11 On Squarcione, see Lightbown, 1986, p. 15-25. See also Marchand, 2007, p. 209-210, and Marchand, 20 (...)
  • 12 Grammacini, 2011, esp. p. 74-75.

4The painter Cennino Cennini mentions plaster in various sections of his Il Libro dell’Arte, a handbook for painters written in Padua around 1400. He describes the making of a gypsum ground and the use of lime-based plaster in al fresco mural painting, and explains how to cast a medal. The most extensive discussion of plaster-related techniques, however, occurs at the end of his book, in a long chapter on how to make a complete life cast of a human body8. The existence of small collections of plaster casts after human body parts in painters’ workshops is documented throughout the 15th century. Painters used these casts to study how to render the human form through light and shade, which often lent their figural design a sculptural quality. As the century progressed, such studio collections would increasingly include casts after works by other masters, ancient and contemporary, in addition to those after the human body9. In this context, the well-known case of Andrea Mantegna’s teacher in Padua, Francesco Squarcione, cannot be omitted. Squarcione is mentioned by Vasari primarily as the teacher of Andrea Mantegna, and for his teaching with the help of plaster casts and other copies10. Paduan sources confirm that this mediocre painter had more than 100 students, and that his teaching tools included large quantities of plaster casts, works that may have informed the classicizing style and sculptural quality of his pupils’ work11. That such a collection was formed in Padua may not have been coincidental: Norberto Grammaccini has compellingly argued that the strong tradition of cast collections in Padua may have been informed by the prevailing humanist traditions at the city’s university, with their strong emphasis on copying and emulation12.

  • 13 On Renaissance draftsmen’s preoccupation with the representation of the human form, see Ames-Lewis, (...)
  • 14 For these materials, see Marchand, 2014, p. 161, with further bibliographical references.
  • 15 A prominent example is Antonio del Pollaiuolo’ relief of men in battle that was sold to Spain; see (...)
  • 16 On the goldsmith’s training in 15th-century Florence and Rome and its relevance for those working o (...)

5Documentary evidence points towards the existence of plaster casts in the workshops of painters and sculptors alike. Their training shared the same emphasis on design and the predominance of the human figure13. Sculptors did not systematically employ three-dimensional preparatory models for their own works, and, where they did, wax and clay were the chosen materials14. There is, however, evidence that some sculptors, including Ghiberti, Donatello, and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, may have recognized the usefulness of casting in plaster: it enabled them to record their own designs, copying perishable clay or wax models, or completed works that were about to leave their workshops15. In this context, plaster casts could serve similar functions to drawings, or, if reproduced more than once, prints. Technically, however, the making of casts was closely related to yet another art, and one in which the three aforementioned sculptors had all been trained before they turned to sculpture, namely goldsmithery. The work of the goldsmith included the modelling, moulding, and casting of intricate forms, which required the highest manual skills and a thorough understanding of the materials used in these processes16. It is therefore telling that Bartolomeo di Lorenzo obtained one of his acquisitions, the terracotta St Jerome, from a goldsmith.

  • 17 McHam, 2007, p. 333-334; Marchand, 2010, p. 65.

6Probably the most common work Bartolomeo bought was his plaster tondo representing the Virgin and, one may safely add, Child. Florentine Virgin and Child reliefs survive in marble, bronze, terracotta, papier mâché, and plaster, but the vast majority are painted works in plaster that mostly go back to hand-modelled prototypes in wax or clay (fig. 2). Many of these reliefs are casts, yet there are also copies or variants that were modelled by hand. These in their turn may have been reproduced, starting off new lines of cast copies. The extensive copying of a small number of prototypes meant that the genre remained iconographically and stylistically stable17.

Fig. 2. Florence, Virgin and Child, 15th century, polychrome stucco, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Sculptures (inv. RF 1188)

Fig. 2. Florence, Virgin and Child, 15th century, polychrome stucco, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Sculptures (inv. RF 1188)

© Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Pierre Philibert.

  • 18 Jolly, 1998, p. 54-57, p. 85-87.

7It is possible that, in some cases, the owner or beholder of one of these reliefs may have seen a direct relationship to another, identical work, particularly when the latter was a marble or bronze by a known artist, but as the existence of many copies after hand-modelled prototypes suggests18, in general, these reliefs did not refer back to an ur-object, but rather referenced an ur-image. For the devout beholder, these images would have been recognized as representations of the Virgin Mary, albeit individualized ones. Their three-dimensionality fulfilled religious, practical, and economic functions: it impacted on the works’ devotional function, in that it asserted the Virgin’s presence in the believer’s own space, and enhanced the figures’ lifelikeness through the play of light and shadow on the irregular surface. For those who made them, plaster-cast reliefs provided a readily shaped image, support, and design with a perfect gypsum ground for the application of tempera paint, thus enabling them to be produced in larger numbers at lower prices, while still leaving space for variation. In comparison, a panel painting of the Virgin and Child – and that was the expensive alternative – required a carefully crafted wooden support with a layered gesso ground before paint could be applied; this then demanded considerable skills of design and execution to evoke three-dimensional qualities on a two-dimensional surface.

  • 19 On Neri di Bicci, his ricordanze, and his collaboration with the sculptor Desiderio da Settignano, (...)

8Thus, the casting process and the use of plaster in the field of the Virgin and Child reliefs were means to specific practical ends. Arguably, neither the production technique, that is the casting process, nor the material, the often-invisible plaster, contributed to the meaning of the work. The fact that the majority of Virgin and Child reliefs were made of plaster, rather than terracotta or papier mâché, is then likely to reflect decisions by those who made these works. In comparison to clay, plaster had the advantage that it did not require the laborious and costly process of firing, with its very real risk of damage or loss. In addition, as mentioned, plaster provides an ideal ground for polychromy; indeed, most Virgin and Child reliefs were polychromed. This means that, at least during the final stages of their production, painters would have been involved. The same can be argued for Bartolomeo di Lorenzo’s gilded gypsum tondo of the Virgin, and it is telling that he acquired it from a painter. Documents like Bartolomeo’s records or the much-quoted Ricordanze (record book) of the 15th-century Florentine painter Neri di Bicci demonstrate that it was often painters who sold the finished plaster works; according to the documentary evidence the casts themselves could originate from either sculptors’ or the painters’ own workshops19.

  • 20 Marchand, 2010, p. 65-66.
  • 21 Spallanzani, Gaeta Bertelà, 1992, p. 202 (c. 97); Carl, 2019, p. 292.
  • 22 The most recent discussion of the Bed of Polycleitus is Carl, 2019, p. 287-297; Carl reproduces two (...)
  • 23 ASFI, Mediceo avanti il principato, vol. 104 (c. 519); cited after Carl, 2019, p. 192.
  • 24 Marchand, 2007, p. 213-214.

9The general availability of works in plaster, however, did not mean that they were the preserve of the less wealthy, and reliefs of the Virgin and Child in plaster, as well as casts after local relief sculpture, are listed in the household inventories of the elite, including the Medici20. One such case is that of a cast after a presumed antique mentioned in the 1492 inventory made after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Among the objects in the Medici Villa at Careggi, the inventory lists “una tavoletta, dipintovi el letto di Pulicleto” “a small tablet depicting the Bed of Polycleitus21”. The Bed of Polycleitus was a famous local antiquity and formed part of the collection of the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. Today, the composition of this lost work is no longer believed to be ancient Greek, but at the time it was admired, studied by artists, including Raphael, and copied, as documented by surviving marble copies (fig. 3)22. As to the tavoletta at Careggi, an earlier Medici inventory of 1480 clarifies its materiality, listing “una tavoletta d’uno gharzone e una fanciulla che vanno a letto, di giesso” “a small relief of a boy and a girl on a bed, of plaster23”. With regard to the 1492 inventory, the absence of any mention of the material, together with the reference to the known ancient image, may have implied for a contemporary that this was a plaster cast. Household inventories were important legal documents, and the material value of objects mattered. If works in plaster were often not identified as such, then that reflected their negligible value. It is, however, noteworthy that the compiler of the 1492 document recognised the supposedly ancient model and considered it well-known enough to refer to it. For their owners, such works may have been invested with values other than financial ones. Thus, Lorenzo may have appreciated his ownership of the cast of the Bed of Polycleitus from aesthetic, antiquarian, and civic points of view. I have argued elsewhere, with reference to a similar cast after a local antique in the Mantova Benavides collection in 16th-century Padua, that such reproductions may also have been given as tokens of friendship24.

Fig. 3. Anonymous, The Bed of Polycleitus (copy), 15th to 16th century, marble, Rome, Palazzo Mattei di Giove

Fig. 3. Anonymous, The Bed of Polycleitus (copy), 15th to 16th century, marble, Rome, Palazzo Mattei di Giove

© The Warburg Institute, London.

  • 25 Gaurico, 1999, p. 232; Vasari (Milanesi, ed.) 1906/reprint 1981, vol. 1, p. 166; Armenini, 1587, p. (...)
  • 26 “uno quadro dentrovi dua fighure di giesso di mezo relievo che vanno in uno letto, non di troppa va (...)

10Turning to the appearance of plaster casts after ancient works, we know that at least the Paduan specimen was left untreated, and this is likely to have been the case, too, with Lorenzo’s cast. The whitish plaster may have been intended to remind their beholders of the marble of the works reproduced. Pomponio Gaurico in his treatise De scultura of 1502 and Giorgio Vasari in his Lives compared plaster with alabaster and marble respectively, while in his De’ veri precetti della pittura of 1587 Giovan Battista Armenini writes that looking at plaster casts in collections across Italy felt like looking at the originals themselves25. This however would only work for those who recognised such casts as copies. When, in 1494, the collections of the expelled Medici were dismantled and sold at auction, the family’s agent Francesco Cegia compiled a secret list of all the items, in which he mentions the cast from Careggi, describing it as “a panel containing two figures in plaster in low relief that enter a bed; of little value26”. Cegia, it seems, was not aware of the cast’s link to a famous local antiquity and may have simply perceived the panel as a modern all’antica composition in a cheap material.

  • 27 Goldthwaite, 1980, p. 403-404.
  • 28 On Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Battle of Nude Men print and the relief of the same iconography, see Wr (...)

11Such a contemporary all’antica composition featured also among Bartolomeo di Lorenzo di Berti’s acquisitions: his gypsum panel of Nudes in Battle was in all likelihood a modern work27. This brings to mind Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Battle of Nude Men print and a metal relief of the same subject, which, according to Vasari, had been sold to Spain, while plaster copies of it were still found in practically every Florentine workshop at the time he compiled his biographies. A hand-modelled terracotta relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (fig. 4) evidently echoes both compositions, and as a variant rather than a direct copy it might indicate the popularity of this kind of work. The accessibility of such works, modelled in terracotta or cast in plaster rather than being executed in marble or bronze, enabled members of wider society, such as Bartolomeo di Lorenzo Berti, to partake in the project of a cultural re-birth28.

Fig. 4. After Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Battle of Nude Men, 1470-1500, terracotta, London, Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. 7598:1,2-1861)

Fig. 4. After Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Battle of Nude Men, 1470-1500, terracotta, London, Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. 7598:1,2-1861)

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  • 29 “L’adorno con una figura d’un San Girolamo di terra, ma finta di bronzo...”; Castiglione, 1573, p.  (...)

12As noted, Bartolomeo had earlier acquired a terracotta St Jerome, which was painted black. The 16th-century Ferrarese author Fra Sabba da Castiglione – who also commented on a cast after Pollaiuolo’s Battle of Nude Men reliefs, confirming thus its distribution beyond Florence – described a very similar object in his Ricordi: “I adorn my study with a figure of St Jerome, made of terracotta but imitating bronze29.” Fired clay may have had a higher position in the hierarchy of materials than plaster, but for it to point towards a worthier material it had to be painted. Untreated or varnished plaster in contrast would always reference marble.

  • 30 Most recently: Carl, 2019, p. 292-293; Dacos, 1977, p. 210-212 and 44-45.
  • 31 Alberti, 1988, p. 177 (Book VI, chapter 9).

13Another type of three-dimensional plaster work – stucco decoration – brings us into the realm of architecture, and again, it was Renaissance painters who played a central role in its development. The subject also allows me to return to the Bed of Polycleitus. The figures of this composition reappear, albeit separated from each other, in Raphael’s Vatican Loggie, modelled by the hand of the painter Giovanni da Udine30. The ancient technique of stucco decoration was re-established in great style in 16th-century Rome, but in the 15th century, in his treatise De re aedificatoria, Leon Battista Alberti already describes the making of architectural decorations in an all’antica mode31.

  • 32 Cennini, 1960, p. 42-50 (mural painting and lime) and p. 77-80 (plaster reliefs on walls).
  • 33 Alberti, 1988, p. 176 (Book VI, chapter 9).
  • 34 Vasari (Milanesi, ed.), 1906/reprint 1981, VI, p. 552-553.
  • 35 Marchand, 2010, p. 55.

14Conceiving designs for extensive expanses of wall related to the painters’ business rather than the sculptors’, and the technique of al fresco mural painting, in which water-based paint was applied directly to fresh plaster, gave them an expertise in this form of architectural decoration as here the painter's task overlapped with that of the plasterer. Cennino Cennini, when describing the fresco technique, prescribes the use of calcina, that is lime-based plaster32. This more water-resistant type of plaster was commonly used by builders for mortar and as a wall covering. In his De re aedificatoria, Alberti confirms this, stating that while gypsum, with its sealed surface, would make a good material for the outermost layer of wall coverings, one should use it only in the driest of environments; generally he recommends lime plaster for this task33. It is Vasari who, in his life of Giovanni da Udine, states that this painter, working under Raphael’s direction on the stucco reliefs of the Vatican Loggie had re-discovered “the true recipe of ancient Roman stucco34”. Whether or not this was the case, it is certain that he developed a lime-based plaster, with ground marble mixed in as an aggregate, for this kind of all’antica stucco decoration35.

  • 36 See e.g. Christ’s halo in the Capture of Christ. On Pinturicchio’s work in Siena Cathedral, see Tor (...)
  • 37 Marchand, 2010, p. 55-59.
  • 38 Marchand, 2014, p. 165.

15The modelling of three-dimensional elements was also not unknown to Italian mural painters. Giotto did not require a sculptor to form his haloes in the Arena Chapel in rilievo, nor did Pinturicchio for his Coronation of Pius III over the entrance to the Piccolomini Library in Siena, where the young Raphael was one of his assistants (fig. 5)36. The craft of the stuccatore thus developed between painting and architecture. After the Sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1523, Giovanni da Udine and other artists who had worked with him left the eternal city, contributing to the spread of this tradition across the north of the Italian peninsula37. In contrast to gypsum plaster, lime-based plaster can largely withstand weather conditions externally. Garden sculpture, too, seems to have been made in lime plaster in the 16th century, as witnessed by the giants by Baccio Bandinelli that survive in the gardens of the Villa Madama in Rome38.

Fig. 5. Pinturricchio, The Coronation of Pius III, 1502-1507, fresco with figures in plaster high relief, Siena, Cathedral, Piccolomini Library

Fig. 5. Pinturricchio, The Coronation of Pius III, 1502-1507, fresco with figures in plaster high relief, Siena, Cathedral, Piccolomini Library

© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro/CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • 39 Marchand, 2019, p. 257-259.

16With all’antica wall decorations and garden sculpture we have reached the realm of the wealthy and powerful. For the sake of completeness, I should also mention the use of plaster in the context of those ephemeral decorations that from the late 15th century onwards would frequently turn Italy’s medieval cities for a few days into New Rome with resplendent white classical architecture and statuary. These three applications of lime-plaster sculpture were all part of a 16th-century drive towards the establishment of courtly societies, whose self-representation they served, employing plaster’s well-known versatility and – even in this context – affordability39.

  • 40 The expression occurs in the Life of Leonardo: “... facendo nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune te (...)

17These applications are however different from the uses, outlined at the start, to which plaster was put, which would in fact ultimately enable the less wealthy but nevertheless well to do, such as Bartolomeo di Lorenzo Berti, to acquire works of sculpture, even with gilding, and in the new all’antica mode. In this context, plaster was certainly not the only affordable material, but it appears to have been the most common and the one associated with cheap reproduction. This may have been partly because of the frequent slippage between the cast’s positive form and the gypsum mould that gives birth to it – both denoted by the word forma – which can be found around the middle of the 16th century in Vasari’s Life of Leonardo, where the biographer refers to the multiplication of sculpture for the broader market as “format[o] per l’arte di gesso”, “formed through the art of gypsum40”.

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Pampaloni G., 1957, “I ricordi segreti del medio Francesco di Agostino Cegia (1495-97)”, Archivio storico italiano, 115, p. 188-234.

Sénéchal P., 2012, “L’éclat du sombre ? Terre cuite façon bronze de la Renaissance italienne”, Technè, 36, p. 26-33.

Settis S., Toracca, D. (eds.), 1998, La libreria Piccolomini nel Duomo di Siena/The Piccolomini library in Siena Cathedral, Franco Cosimo Panini, Modena.

Spallanzani M., Gaeta Bertela G. (eds.), 1992, Libro d’inventario dei beni di Lorenzo il Magnfico, Associazione ‘Amici del Bargello’, Florence.

Thomas A, 1995, The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York.

Vasari G. (Milanesi, ed.), 1906/reprint 1981, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, ed. by G. Milanesi, 10 vols., Sansoni, Florence.

Wright A., 2005, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome, Yale University Press, New Haven/London.

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Notes

1 Sénéchal, 2012.

2 Bartolomeo’s full name varies in the sources and secondary literature. Goldthwaite refers to him as Bartolomeo di Lorenzo Banderaio, after his profession as banner-maker (banderaio), while Rita Maria Comanducci uses his surname Berti, which the family started to use in the early 16th century and which referred to his grandfather, Berto di Bartolomeo di Berto; Comanducci, 2003, p. 16. Bartolomeo listed his acquisitions in his accounts (ASF, S. Paolo 129, accounts and memoranda, 1514-1539, unnumbered folios at the beginning of the book), and they are here quoted after Goldthwaite, 1980, p. 403-404: “16 April ‘Io San Girolamo di tterrachotta ttinto a nero, da botteggha di Vincezio Finiguerra orafo’; 17 July ‘ttondo d’una nostra madonna di gesso messa d’oro’, from the painter Bernardo; 6 September ‘Ia Santa Maria Madalena di tterra e Io quadro di geso di gnudi in battaglia’; 23 November ‘Ia pietta di tera di rilievo dipintta’, from the painter Battista”. For a more extensive discussion of Bartolomeo’s acquisitions, and his professional and family background, see Comanducci, 2003, p. 15-18.

3 Goldthwaite, 1980, p. 403-404.

4 Bartolomeo paid 5 lire for the gilded plaster tondo of the Virgin, a similar price for the Pietà, and little more than a lira for each of the other three items. In contrast, a marble relief of the Virgin and Child attributed to Donatello was valued at 25 florins in the 1492 inventory drawn up after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici (Spallanzani, Gaeta Bertelà, 1992, p. 26 (c. 14)). Around 1500, the value of the lira to the florin was approximately 7:1.

5 For the techniques of Italian early Renaissance panel paintings and their grounds, see Dunkerton, Foister, Gordon, Penny, 1991, p. 162-182 and 188-192; see also Marchand, 2010, p. 59-60.

6 In his treatise mentioned below, Cennino Cennini describes the making of pastiglia elements; Cennini, 1960, p. 129-130. For a discussion in the modern literature, see, e.g., Gordon, 2009, p. 512, and Marchand, 2010, p. 60.

7 On this shield, see Wright, 2005, p. 296-298, 526-527; see also Malgouyres, 2015.

8 Cennini, 1960, p. 69-76 (for a description of how to apply a gesso ground), p. 130-131 (for casts of medals and coins), and p. 123-129 (for casting the human body).

9 On artists’ collections, see Marchand, 2007, p. 196-210, esp. 207.

10 Vasari (Milanesi, ed.) 1906/reprint 1981, III, p. 384-386.

11 On Squarcione, see Lightbown, 1986, p. 15-25. See also Marchand, 2007, p. 209-210, and Marchand, 2010, p. 61-62.

12 Grammacini, 2011, esp. p. 74-75.

13 On Renaissance draftsmen’s preoccupation with the representation of the human form, see Ames-Lewis, 2000, p. 91-123; on the focus on the human figure when drawing after the antique, see also Aymonino, 2015, esp. p. 16-23.

14 For these materials, see Marchand, 2014, p. 161, with further bibliographical references.

15 A prominent example is Antonio del Pollaiuolo’ relief of men in battle that was sold to Spain; see below and Marchand, 2010, p. 62.

16 On the goldsmith’s training in 15th-century Florence and Rome and its relevance for those working on sculpture, see Wright, 2005, p. 25-29.

17 McHam, 2007, p. 333-334; Marchand, 2010, p. 65.

18 Jolly, 1998, p. 54-57, p. 85-87.

19 On Neri di Bicci, his ricordanze, and his collaboration with the sculptor Desiderio da Settignano, see Gentilini, 2006, p. 36-37; see also Thomas, 1995, p. 59-62, and Marchand, 2010, p. 65.

20 Marchand, 2010, p. 65-66.

21 Spallanzani, Gaeta Bertelà, 1992, p. 202 (c. 97); Carl, 2019, p. 292.

22 The most recent discussion of the Bed of Polycleitus is Carl, 2019, p. 287-297; Carl reproduces two marble copies, one in a private collection, the other (fig. 3) inserted into the walls of the Palazzo Mattei di Giove in Rome; Carl, 2019, p. 290 and 291, figs 22 and 23 with note 93.

23 ASFI, Mediceo avanti il principato, vol. 104 (c. 519); cited after Carl, 2019, p. 192.

24 Marchand, 2007, p. 213-214.

25 Gaurico, 1999, p. 232; Vasari (Milanesi, ed.) 1906/reprint 1981, vol. 1, p. 166; Armenini, 1587, p. 63: “... alle quale riguardando mi pareva che fossero le proprie di Roma.”

26 “uno quadro dentrovi dua fighure di giesso di mezo relievo che vanno in uno letto, non di troppa valuta, fiorini. - 10”, Pampaloni, 1957, p. 229 (1496, c. 32b); also cited in Carl, 2019, p. 292 with note 127.

27 Goldthwaite, 1980, p. 403-404.

28 On Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Battle of Nude Men print and the relief of the same iconography, see Wright, 2005, p. 176-181, 506-507 (the print) and 324-326 (the relief). Wright categorizes the relief as “after Antonio del Pollaiuolo” while, on its website, the Victoria and Albert Museum attributes the work to Antonio. Most recently, the relief has been discussed by Whitney Kerr-Lewis and Peta Motture in Cat. Exhib. Paris-Milan, 2020, p. 82-83, who authors attribute the work to a Florentine artist, perhaps after Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

29 “L’adorno con una figura d’un San Girolamo di terra, ma finta di bronzo...”; Castiglione, 1573, p. 119, here cited after Marchand, 2007, p. 218-219. On Fra Sabba’s relief and, more generally, on bronze patinas for works in cheaper materials, see Sénéchal, 2012, especially p. 27-28. Sabba da Castiglione’s comments on Pollaiuolo’s relief can be found in the same chapter (109, “On the decorations of the home”, Castiglione, 1573, p. 115); on this, see Wright, 2005, p. 324-326.

30 Most recently: Carl, 2019, p. 292-293; Dacos, 1977, p. 210-212 and 44-45.

31 Alberti, 1988, p. 177 (Book VI, chapter 9).

32 Cennini, 1960, p. 42-50 (mural painting and lime) and p. 77-80 (plaster reliefs on walls).

33 Alberti, 1988, p. 176 (Book VI, chapter 9).

34 Vasari (Milanesi, ed.), 1906/reprint 1981, VI, p. 552-553.

35 Marchand, 2010, p. 55.

36 See e.g. Christ’s halo in the Capture of Christ. On Pinturicchio’s work in Siena Cathedral, see Toracca in Settis, Toracca (eds.), 1998, p. 347.

37 Marchand, 2010, p. 55-59.

38 Marchand, 2014, p. 165.

39 Marchand, 2019, p. 257-259.

40 The expression occurs in the Life of Leonardo: “... facendo nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune teste di femine che ridono, che vanno formate per l’arte di gesso”; Vasari (Milanesi, ed.), 1906/reprint 1981, IV, p. 19.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Shield with Milos of Croton, 1470s, gilded and painted stucco on leather-covered wood, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Objets d’art, donation Godefroy Brauer (inv. OA 7381)
Crédits © C2RMF/T. Clot.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/techne/docannexe/image/8612/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,0M
Titre Fig. 2. Florence, Virgin and Child, 15th century, polychrome stucco, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Sculptures (inv. RF 1188)
Crédits © Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Pierre Philibert.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/techne/docannexe/image/8612/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 812k
Titre Fig. 3. Anonymous, The Bed of Polycleitus (copy), 15th to 16th century, marble, Rome, Palazzo Mattei di Giove
Crédits © The Warburg Institute, London.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/techne/docannexe/image/8612/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 728k
Titre Fig. 4. After Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Battle of Nude Men, 1470-1500, terracotta, London, Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. 7598:1,2-1861)
Crédits © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/techne/docannexe/image/8612/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 732k
Titre Fig. 5. Pinturricchio, The Coronation of Pius III, 1502-1507, fresco with figures in plaster high relief, Siena, Cathedral, Piccolomini Library
Crédits © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro/CC BY-SA 4.0.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/techne/docannexe/image/8612/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 944k
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Eckart Marchand, « Plaster sculpture between painting and architecture »Technè, 51 | 2021, 23-31.

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Eckart Marchand, « Plaster sculpture between painting and architecture »Technè [En ligne], 51 | 2021, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2022, consulté le 23 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/techne/8612 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/techne.8612

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Eckart Marchand

Assistant Archivist, International Research Project Bilderfahrzeuge/The Warburg Institute, London (eckart.marchand[at]sas.ac.uk).

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