Lot 469: AN ITALIAN TERRACOTTA ALLEGORICAL FIGURE OF TEMPERANCE, BY FILIPPO DELLA VALLE (1698-1768), FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

AN ITALIAN TERRACOTTA ALLEGORICAL FIGURE OF TEMPERANCE, BY FILIPPO DELLA VALLE (1698-1768), FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY height 23 3/4 in.; 60.4 cm

E. P. Bowron (ed.), Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century (exh. cat.), Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000, pp. 290-291, no. 158
B. Boucher (ed.), Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, (exh. cat.) 2001, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, pp. 248-249, no. 70

A. Gonzáles-Palacios (ed.), L'Oro di Valadier (exh. cat.), Rome, 1997, p. 163, no. 1
La donation Jacques Petithory an muse Bonnat, Bayonne, Paris, 1997, no. 103, p. 81

Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle (probably bought in Rome, circa 1740-47)
Castle Howard, Yorkshire (sold Sotheby's, November 11, 1991, part of lot 47)

This fine terracotta figure is a reduced version of one of Della Valle's most famous works and was almost certainly purchased in Rome for Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle (1694-1758), a celebrated collector of antique sculpture and gems. He also owned Bernini's bust of the Carlo Antonio del Pozzo and a terracotta bust of Cloelia Farnese by Algardi. Carlisle was buying antiquities in Rome between 1740 and 1747 from Michele Lopez Rosa, Belisario Amidei and Francesco de Ficorini, and much of the related correspondence still exists in the Castle Howard Archives. This figure is almost certainly the one listed in the Probate Inventory of Henry 4th Earl of Carlisle in 1758 and later inventories until 1918.

The marble statue of Temperance was commissioned by Pope Clement XII Corsini to adorn his great chapel in S. Giovanni in Laterano. The chapel was designed by Alessandro Gallei who was also the architect of the façades of the basilica. The vault of the chapel is decorated with stucchi by Cornacchini and on the altar is a mosaic copy after Guido Reni's S. Andrea Corsini. Opposite the altar, the Pope's tomb is flanked by the Temperance, together with Rusconi's Fortitude and Lironi's figures of Prudence and Justice. Payments were made to Della Valle in 1733-34.

The present terracotta is highly finished and closely resembles the final marble. Another terracotta of Temperance was formerly in the Seilern Collection in London and another is in Bayonne.

Della Valle was much admired by English patrons. In 1740-41 he carved a figure of Modesty for the monument Horace Walpole commissioned in memory of his mother, Lady Walpole (in Westminster Abbey, erected in 1754 by Rysbrack). In 1750 he carved two marble copies from the Antique for the Marquess of Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, and in 1763 he made two statues after the Antique for the Duke of Northumberland, still in the State Dining Room at Syon House.

RELATED LITERATURE

H. Honour, "Filippo della Valle", Connoisseur, CXLIV, 1959
V.H. Minor, The Roman Works of Filippo della Valle, dissertation, University of Kansas, 1976
G. Pratesi, Repertorio della Scultura Fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento, Turin, 1993, vol. I, pp. 42-3 and 75-6