Date : approx. between 1637 and 1643
Material : White marble
| Maria Cerri Capranica (1601/2-1653)
Item 6 on 16
European Painting
Sculpture (Bust)
Area related
Italy
| 
|  | |
| Description |  |
|
Finelli came from a family of stonemasons in Carrara and trained in Naples before entering Bernini's workshop in 1622. His prowess in carving marble was put to use by Bernini on some of the more astonishing passages of the early groups and portraits, but the two men fell out when Bernini did not award him one of the four statues for the crossing of St Peter's. Finelli eventually left Rome for Naples in 1634 and enjoyed many productive years there, creating a notable series of saints for the cathedral church of San Gennaro.
His preference for the particular rather than the whole prevented Finelli from being a great statuary artist, although it enabled him to evolve a striking flair for portraiture. His masterpiece is the bust of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, a descendant of Michelangelo and a close friend of Pietro da Cortona. Although Finelli's bust had no commemorative purpose, it is one of the finest of the seventeenth century. When he returned to Rome in 1650 he pursued a career as a portraitist.
Finelli combined a penetrating character study with a virtuoso display of marble carving, transforming the stone into a sinuous string of beads, stiff lace, and curly ringlets of hair. In the subtle carving of her features, the artist invested his subject with a powerful and stately psychological presence. Married in 1637, Maria Cerri and Bartolomeo Capranica were both from prominent seventeenth-century families, whose family coats of arms appear on the base.
| Item(s) related | |
|
