Florence, restored Ginori models on display at Villa Medicea la Petraia

The Medici Villa La Petraia in Florence is hosting in its new museum itinerary, from December 21, 2021 to June 21, 2022, the exhibition "The Model Room. Restored Sculptures from the Ginori Museum, which displays a core of the Ginori company’s collection of models. To know the history of these objects, it is necessary to retrace the history of the Ginori porcelain manufactory, which since the 18th century has carried the name of Italy throughout the world, not only with the splendid servants that decorated the tables of royal palaces and the most illustrious houses, but also with extraordinary reproductions of masterpieces, which became precious and sought-after souvenirs of the Grand Tour. Shortly after founding in Doccia, in 1737, the famous Manifattura that bears his name, Marquis Carlo Andrea Ginori in fact purchased terracotta, plaster and wax models as well as plaster forms from the workshops of various Florentine artists in order to endow the enterprise with a sample book aimed at making porcelain sculptures for the market.

The choice of models, materials of use and working tools that the marquis thus saved from probable dispersion, reflected the collecting preferences of the time, in particular the antiquarian taste nurtured by northern European travelers who, on their Grand Tour to Italy, purchased reduced-size reproductions from classical statuary, in high demand by international clientele. The collection of models constitutes the noblest and most distinctive core of the Ginori enterprise: a repository of sometimes poor and lacunar materials, representing the oldest corpus of the collection, an inexhaustible source of information on the modus operandi of the artists in the manufactory and the techniques they adopted. This treasure is quite damaged today, with cuts, stains, widespread yellowing, cracks, falls, sticking, and plastering due to use and time.

Thanks to the fundraising promoted in 2018 by Artigianato e Palazzo in collaboration with the Associazione Amici di Doccia and MiC - Direzione regionale musei della Toscana, and the support of the Region of Tuscany, it was possible to restore 44 models among those most in need of restoration: 28 waxes, 4 plaster casts and 12 terracottas. It is precisely a significant group of these models that is the protagonist of the exhibition organized by the Regional Directorate Museums of Tuscany - Medici Villa La Petraia, with the Richard Ginori Museum Foundation and the Friends of Doccia Association, with the contribution also of Unicoop Firenze. Curated by Giulia Basilissi and Giulia Coco, with the collaboration of Rita Balleri, Livia Frescobaldi and Oliva Rucellai, it is enriched by videos illustrating the restoration work on the works on display, so that the delicate recovery of these precious artifacts can be observed in detail.

The decision to host these works at Villa La Petraia is due to the fact that this place for centuries has been closely linked to the territory of Sesto Fiorentino, the same to which the Fabbrica belongs, but also because the former Medici and Lorraine residence, then of the Savoys, now a state museum, preserves and exhibits Ginori artifacts: everyday objects but also refined decorations that characterized part of the Manifattura’s production, which was also developed for the purpose of adorning noble residences in Italy and Europe.

The exhibition, set up in the newly restored rooms, part of the Villa’s new exhibition itinerary, is the first after the recent establishment of the Richard Ginori Archive Museum Foundation of the Doccia Factory. The exhibition will offer visitors the chance to admire often unpublished works, to understand the use and purpose of the models in relation to the Manifattura’s production, and to discover the work of artists and artisans involved in the Enterprise, as well as the more technical and lesser-known aspects of the creation and conservation of these true works of art.

“In these now restored objects,” stresses Stefano Casciu, regional museums director for Tuscany, “is evidence of the desire of the founder Carlo Ginori and the subsequent directors of the historic factory to gather and offer the Manifattura’s artists and workers examples of the last season of late Florentine Baroque sculpture that were important in terms of style and quality. That artistic production, which had expressed itself mainly in refined bronzes of small format, remains inextricably linked to the decline of the Medici dynasty and in particular to the court of Cosimo III, but it served as a springboard and inexhaustible source of inspiration for forms, subjects and stylistic solutions, by then fully Rococo, of the more modern production in porcelain started in Doccia by Carlo Ginori in 1737.”

Carlo Ginori’s interests were in fact also oriented toward the Florentine tradition of late Baroque bronze sculpture in small format, nurtured by Medici collecting. This tradition had one of its highest moments in the commission by Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, between 1722 and 1725, of a series of small bronze groups depicting biblical subjects, made by sculptors active for the Tuscan grand ducal court between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The extraordinary bronze models of Giovanni Battista Foggini’s David with the Head of Goliath, compared with the wax model, and Giuseppe Piamontini’s Sacrifice of Isaac on display in the exhibition well exemplify these artistic trends that were still alive around the middle of the eighteenth century. Among the works on display, the terracotta depicting the Drunken Bacchus, the work of one of the greatest bronze masters of the late Florentine Baroque, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, deserves special attention for its freshness of modeling and original invention. The group, a fine example of late 17th-century sculptural art, is presented to the public for the first time in the Petraia exhibition. Also on display for the first time is the bas-relief with the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, after the patient restoration that made it possible to recover and reassemble its various fragments, thus restoring legibility to the work.

“If the rescue of the Doccia Museum has catalyzed the interest and concern of even the international scientific community, it is due precisely to the presence of these models,” says Livia Frescobaldi, president of the Amici di Doccia Association.

“When the Artigianato e Palazzo fundraiser was launched, which made it possible to intervene on forty-four of the more than a thousand sculptural models from the ancient Doccia factory,” says Andrea Di Lorenzo, director of the Museo Ginori, “the museum had recently been acquired by the state after years of closure, but the establishment of the Foundation to which the Ministry of Cultural Heritage would entrust its management was still awaited. Today this step is also now complete and the Museo Ginori has been able to collaborate in the realization of the exhibition. I am happy that the ’debut’ of the reborn museum takes place precisely with an initiative dedicated to the original core of the collection, that is, the collection of models, which is one of its most precious treasures.”

“Facilitating access to culture, promoting the appreciation of the beautiful,” Unicoop Firenze argues, “in this case the restoration of the Ginori sculptures and models, and broadening the enjoyment of exhibitions and museums: these are some of the goals of Unicoop Firenze, for which culture is one of the key words of social commitment. We are therefore happy to support this exhibition, which is an opportunity to make known an area and ’the factory of beauty’ that it hosted: there are almost unseen works on display, and the visit will be a way for everyone to discover the work of artists and artisans.”

Opening Hours: Tuesday through Sunday December, January and February 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2:30-4:30 p.m., March 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2:30-5:30 p.m., April-June 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2:30-6:30 p.m. Closed: Monday, January 1, December 25. Free admission only with Green Pass, no reservation required for maximum 15 people. Guided tours and talks on topics related to the history, technique and restoration of the models will accompany the exhibition through June starting Wednesday, Dec. 29 and Wednesday, Jan. 5 at 10:30 a.m. (admission by reservation only at info@amicididoccia.it for a maximum of 15 people).

Image: Sleeping Ariadne, plaster model from the second half of the 18th century.

Florence, restored Ginori models on display at Villa Medicea la Petraia

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