sht. 79
Giuseppe Valadier
B 1800 - 1801
B 300 x 205 mm
A
Giuseppe Valadier, Design for the reliquary of the Holy Crib in Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1800-1, graphite, pen, grey ink, grey, yellow, brownish, red and green wash on paper, 415 x 260 mm.; numbered upper right: “86”; inscription in pen bottom centre: “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO ET IN TERRA PAX”; it bears the Roman palm scale in the lower margin. The drawing is the final design for a reliquary completed by the Valadier workshop in 1802 and donated that same year to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore by María Manuela Pignatelli de Aragón y de Gonzaga, Duchess of Villahermosa, who had commissioned it. The drawings of Giuseppe Valadier in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome (Vitt. Em. 408) include a more summary design of the reliquary. Valadier himself provides a detailed description of the reliquary (Valadier 1833. P. 18). The models of the reliquary were made by the sculptor Luigi Acquisti.
Bibliography: Leone 2019a, p. 89; Leone 2019b, p. 74.
B
Giuseppe Valadier, First design for the reliquary of the Holy Crib in Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1800-1, graphite, pen, grey ink, grey, yellow, brown, brownish and red wash on paper, 300 x 205 mm.; numbered upper right: “86”; inscription bottom centre: “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO ET IN TERRA PAX”; it bears the Roman palm scale in the lower margin. The drawing is an initial design for the reliquary illustrated in the previous drawing (A on sht. 79).
Bibliography: Leone 2019a, p. 89; Leone 2019b, p. 74.
