GRAND SPRING AUCTION OF PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, LATIN AMERICAN ART AND FINE WATCHES
Lot 14:
Polychrome and gold terracotta. Giovanni Battista Morelli was a disciple of Alessandro Algardi. He was active in Paris for the king of France until 1659, when he moved to Valencia, probably through the patronage of the Duke of Montalto. In Valencia he worked in clay for the Cartuja de la Vall de Crist in addition to carrying out private commissions. In 1661 he was appointed court sculptor to King Philip IV of Spain, apparently through the intervention of his friend Velázquez. Later he also worked for Charles II, for whom he carried out the stucco decorations of the ceilings and domes of the Aranjuez Palace (Charles II’s office). is still preserved) and for the Royal Fortress of Madrid, although these were burned in a fire in 1734. Among the royal collection, after surviving the fire of the fortress, another “Sleeping Child” is preserved in the National Museum of Sculpture of Valladolid like “memento mori”. In the Prado there is a porcelain of Saint John the Baptist, which is the only piece of his work that has reached the museum among the works cited in the royal inventories. Morelli specialized in modeling with clay and stucco of the highest quality, then his creations were polychrome to the Spanish taste. The great fragility of these sculptures, as well as their small format, means that very few examples of his work survive to this day as well preserved as this one. Measurements: 25 x 50 x 28 cm.
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