From the Sounds of St. Francis, 4 June, 2017
The terracotta statuary created by the Della Robbia family of
Florence is instantly recognizable: white figures surrounded by vivid blue
backgrounds, often wreathed by bright green leaves and fruit. But these statues
don’t always get so much respect. Modern connoisseurs of high Renaissance art
usually swoon over the Leonardos, Raphaels, and Michelangelos instead and
galleries sometimes consign Della Robbia statues to the hallways or overstuffed
“ojects d’arte” rooms.
In their own time, though, the Della Robbias (an uncle, a
nephew and a grand-nephew) were highly regarded and received enormous numbers
of commissions. In some ways, victims of their own success, the family
developed a unique process for glazing terracotta, leaving behind vivid colors
and a glassy sheen. Their impressive workshop method allowed extensive
production for over a century. We tend to overlook their statues because there
are so many of them, not just at world-class museums like the National
Gallery, but in all sorts of private collections (including an impressive
Madonna and Child that hung in the library of my former parish in Cooperstown).
If you’ve been to Tuscany or Umbria you will know how cheap knock-offs of Della
Robbia work abound in souvenir shops, cheapening one’s experience of beholding
the real thing.
