FROM TERRACOTTA TO MARBLE

Genesis of a masterpiece

The exhibition FROM TERRACOTTA TO MARBLE compares the famous Christ at the Column, a masterpiece by Filippo Parodi and the highlight of the Royal Palace collections, with the corresponding terracotta model, now owned by the London antiquarian gallery Stuart Lochhead Sculpture.

The marble

With his left shoulder turned towards the viewer, Christ shows his head tilted backwards, as if to emphasize the pained expression and the movement of the entire figure captured before losing consciousness. A low stump recalls the one preserved in the Roman church of Santa Prassede as a relic of the flagellation column and serves as support for the Nazarene. Here the artist also places the two instruments of punishment, abandoned by the tormentors, and carves in cursive letters, the signature: "J.F. Parodi".

The terracotta

Parodi used to model terracotta sketches with the aim of showing compositions to clients and guiding his collaborators who would then help him in the realization of the final works.

It is possible that the model exhibited here - about half the size of the marble - can be recognized in the "Our Lord at the Column" recorded in the 1703 inventory of the assets in the artist's home, drawn up the year after his death.

FILIPPO PARODI (Genoa, 1630 - 1702)

Trained as a wood carver, he quickly became the best Baroque talent of the local school, bringing an updated language on Roman innovations.

He designed and created prestigious works such as the decoration of the ship Paradiso, the carriage for the wedding of Anna Pamphilj and Giovanni Andrea III Doria, as well as frames, consoles, wooden statues, furnishings, decorations, and of course marvelous marble sculptures for both religious purposes and splendid patrician residences.

A second Roman stay in the early seventies of the seventeenth century allowed him to assimilate with personality the creative power of Bernini's models that we find in the works executed for great Genoese clients, from the Brignole to the Grimaldi and Spinola, from the Sauli to the Durazzo.

His fame led him to work beyond the Ligurian borders, in Venice and Padua where he was involved in the creation of grandiose marble and stucco monuments.