Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 68
Desiderio da Settignano’s bust relief in pietra serena (fig. 1; 50 by 24 cm) was probably carved
during the third quarter of the fifteenth century. It was formerly in the Badia a Settimo near
Florence, was subsequently purchased by Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany for the Uffizi Gallery in
1784, and later passed to the Museo del Bargello in 1873, where it is still housed today. During the
nineteenth century it was believed to have been carved by Donatello.
Fig. 1. Desiderio da Settignano, St John the Baptist.
pietra serena, 50 x 24 cm. Museo Bargello, Florence.
Fig. 2. Desiderio da Settignano, St John the Baptist. marble
and alabaster, tondo. Museo Horne, Florence.
Mallerini likely based the present work on a marble copy or a plaster cast of Desiderio’s original,
such as the plaster relief from 1864 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, or the plaster in
the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. Further versions of Desiderio’s relief are known: a version in
painted stucco is housed in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, and there is a derivative tondo in
marble and alabaster in the Museo Horne in Florence (fig. 2).
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