Books by Zuzanna Sarnecka
Through meticulously researched case studies, this book explores the materiality of terracotta sc... more Through meticulously researched case studies, this book explores the materiality of terracotta sculpture in early modern Europe.
Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general.
This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, and material culture.
The Matter of Mimesis, 2022
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
This book explores the role of glazed terracotta sculpture in Renaissance Italy, from c. 1450 to ... more This book explores the role of glazed terracotta sculpture in Renaissance Italy, from c. 1450 to the mid-1530s. In its brightness and intense colour glazed terracotta strongly attracted the viewer’s gaze. Its pure and radiant surfaces also had the power to raise the mind and soul of the faithful to contemplation of the divine. The quasi-magical process of firing earthenware coated with tin-based paste, promoted initially by imports from the East, was seized upon by Luca della Robbia, who realised that glazed terracotta was the ideal vehicle for the numinous. He began to create sculptures in the medium in the 1430s, and continued to produce them for the rest of his life. After Luca’s death, his nephew, Andrea della Robbia, inherited his workshop in Florence and continued to develop the medium, together with his sons. The book considers some of the large-scale altarpieces created by the Della Robbia family in parallel with a number of small-scale figures in glazed terracotta, mostly made by unidentified sculptors. The captivating illustrations integrate these two categories of glazed terracotta sculpture into the history of Italian Renaissance art. By focusing on a specific artistic medium which stimulated piety in both ecclesiastical and domestic contexts, this book offers new ways of thinking about the religious art of the Italian Renaissance. The links it establishes between lay devotion and the creation of religious images in glazed terracotta invite reassessment of habitual distinctions between private and public art.
Open Access: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484/M.HMSAH-EB.5.129108
Various striking similarities between art from geographically distant locations tempted art histo... more Various striking similarities between art from geographically distant locations tempted art historians to analyze and compare specific examples of regional artistic solutions. Until recently most scholars placed their efforts on identifying influences stimulating creation of visually similar art in different locations. Presently the term influence itself was subject to revision, followed by the rejection of its implicit straightforward direction of any artistic connection, and instead arguably more useful term translation had been introduced.
Articles by Zuzanna Sarnecka
Faenza, 2020
Over the course of 40 years, Vincenzo Funghini (1828-1896) accumulated a wide range of maiolica o... more Over the course of 40 years, Vincenzo Funghini (1828-1896) accumulated a wide range of maiolica objects that are now treasured in many private and public collections. Born in Castiglion Fiorentino, in Arezzo's district, Tuscany, Funghini was an engineer, architect and archaeologist that became one of the most important nineteenth-century collectors and antiquarians of Italian maiolica. During his lifetime, he published texts related to his collections including a booklet accompanying the national industrial exhibition in Milan of 1881, where he showcased 72 items from over 4000 examples of his prehistoric weapons. On the subject of Italian ceramics, he wrote about the Medici porcelain to provide a context for two treasured pieces from his collection. In response to publications by Federigo Argnani, Funghini published also on the maiolica production in Cafaggiolo, Mugello and Faenza, at that time thought to be the most significant ceramic centres in Italy of around 1500. To this list of writings, it is important to add the twenty-five diaries preserved in the State Archives in Arezzo. In large part unpublished, the volumes provide invaluable information for the analysis of the life of the collector. In this article I will briefly reconstruct Funghini's approach to his collection, as seen through the lens of his personal accounts. Subsequently, I will focus on his contacts with international collectors. These diaries inform our understanding of the appreciation for Italian Renaissance maiolica across Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Word & Image, 2019
The silverpoint drawing of A Seated Woman Reading with Child (c.1512–13) at Chatsworth seems to b... more The silverpoint drawing of A Seated Woman Reading with Child (c.1512–13) at Chatsworth seems to be Raphael’s final word in his rethinking of the composition that would integrate a female figure with her child and a book. While the mother focuses her gaze on a book, the child’s upper body is twisted towards the viewer. This group certainly has a domestic quality to it, while it also formally partakes in compositions depicting the Virgin reading with Christ Child. This article suggests that it was this association between the domestic and the religious scene that Raphael wished to devise for printmaking purposes. Once engraved, the composition could circulate both as a print and as a design on maiolica piatti da pompa destined to decorate elite Italian Renaissance homes. Raphael developed a powerful and an intimate scene suitable to accompany various moralizing texts on these ornate, lustred plates. Both the image and the text guided young mothers in their daily activities and assisted the process of self-fashioning enabled by the ambiguity of Raphael’s design and written phrases, which allowed a more universal interpretation of the figures.
Artibus et Historiae, 2016
In Biblioteca Marciana and Bibliothèque Nationale de France there are two manuscripts which thank... more In Biblioteca Marciana and Bibliothèque Nationale de France there are two manuscripts which thanks to the fifteenth-century inscriptions can be identified as once belonging to Luca della Robbia. We know very little about the artist’s biography and it is very tempting to view the books as an indication of his interests and perhaps as a source that informed his art. This article explores the possible impact of Jacopone da Todi’s Cantiche spirituali and Dante’s Vita nuova and Convivio on Luca della Robbia’s glazed terracotta devotional reliefs. The purity of his immaculate white glazes and the emphasis on the mystery of Incarnation and the Virgin’s central role in the history of salvation might have been nourished by those texts, which we know Luca had among his possessions. Moreover, the examination of the surviving manuscripts sheds a new light on the place of personal piety of the artist in his artistic practice. Considering the unparalleled popularity of Della Robbia’s devotional sculptures in Renaissance Italy it is important to evaluate to what extent this was linked to their evident technical supremacy or to their strong spiritual charge, informed by various texts.
Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy, 2018
Religions, 2019
The present study describes the function of small-scale maiolica sanctuaries and chapels created ... more The present study describes the function of small-scale maiolica sanctuaries and chapels created in Italy in the sixteenth century. The so-called eremi encouraged a multisensory engagement of the faithful with complex structures that included receptacles for holy water, openings for the burning of incense, and moveable parts. They depicted a saint contemplating a crucifix or a book in a landscape and, as such, they provided a model for everyday pious life. Although they were less lifelike than the full-size recreations of holy sites, such as the Sacro Monte in Varallo, they had the significant advantage of allowing more spontaneous handling. The reduced scale made the objects portable and stimulated a more immediate pious experience. It seems likely that they formed part of an intimate and private setting. The focused attention given here to works by mostly anonymous artists reveals new categories of analysis, such as their religious efficacy. This allows discussion of these neglected artworks from a more positive perspective, in which their spiritual significance, technical accomplishment and functionality come to the fore.
Biuletyn Historii Sztuki, 2018
Przegląd Historyczny, 2019
The present study focuses on the Della Robbia frames created for the altarpieces in the Marche –... more The present study focuses on the Della Robbia frames created for the altarpieces in the Marche – a largely understudied region of the Italian peninsula. It proposes that the frames of the Marchigian altarpieces were instrumental in establishing the fame of the Florentine artists in the region. Two Della Robbia brothers, both Dominican friars, Fra Mattia (1468– after c. 1532) and Fra Ambrogio (1477–1528), moved to the Marche in the mid-1520s and established a workshop in Monte Santo – present-day Potenza Picena. Whilst the local frames of the Della Robbia altarpieces are invariably covered with coloured vitreous paste, the central scenes are often largely painted in cold polychromy. This artistic choice, likely spurred by technical constraints, meant that fruits, vases with flowers and lions’ heads included in the frames had the potential of capturing the viewer’s attention in a more immediate way than the religious images they encompassed. Furthermore, through the agency of the innovative medium of glazed terracotta and the naturalistic repertoire of motifs, the frames both structured the devotional experience and testified to the endurance of the Della Robbia sculptures. In many instances sections of the glazed frames survived intact to our times whilst the elements modelled in unglazed terracotta had been irretrievably lost or severely damaged. Moreover, as the glazed frames made wide use of the realistic vegetal motifs and of blue and white – the signature colours of the Della Robbia ware – they became the trademark of the workshop in the Marche. From the 1530s, thanks to the use of the moulds, the glazed frames constituted the most accomplished components of the terracotta altarpieces created by anonymous local artisans active in the region after the death of the Della Robbia brothers.
Pregare in casa. Oggetti e documenti della pratica religiosa tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, 2018
The present study examines a polychrome wooden crucifix from the Franciscan Convent of Monteripid... more The present study examines a polychrome wooden crucifix from the Franciscan Convent of Monteripido in Perugia. It seeks to question the understanding, current from the early twentieth century, of the sculpture as a work of a German artist, referred to as Giovanni Tedesco or Johannes Teuthonicus, working in Italy from around the 1440s.
Italiano: Questo studio prende in considerazione un crocifisso
ligneo policromo del convento francescano
di Monteripido a Perugia. Scopo della
ricerca è interrogarsi sull’ipotesi, diffusa sin
dagli inizi del XX secolo, che la scultura sia
opera di un artista tedesco, identificato come
Giovanni Tedesco o Johannes Teuthonicus,
attivo in Italia a partire dagli anni quaranta del
Quattrocento.
Conference Presentations by Zuzanna Sarnecka
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Books by Zuzanna Sarnecka
Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general.
This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, and material culture.
Open Access: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484/M.HMSAH-EB.5.129108
Articles by Zuzanna Sarnecka
Italiano: Questo studio prende in considerazione un crocifisso
ligneo policromo del convento francescano
di Monteripido a Perugia. Scopo della
ricerca è interrogarsi sull’ipotesi, diffusa sin
dagli inizi del XX secolo, che la scultura sia
opera di un artista tedesco, identificato come
Giovanni Tedesco o Johannes Teuthonicus,
attivo in Italia a partire dagli anni quaranta del
Quattrocento.
Conference Presentations by Zuzanna Sarnecka
Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general.
This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, and material culture.
Open Access: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484/M.HMSAH-EB.5.129108
Italiano: Questo studio prende in considerazione un crocifisso
ligneo policromo del convento francescano
di Monteripido a Perugia. Scopo della
ricerca è interrogarsi sull’ipotesi, diffusa sin
dagli inizi del XX secolo, che la scultura sia
opera di un artista tedesco, identificato come
Giovanni Tedesco o Johannes Teuthonicus,
attivo in Italia a partire dagli anni quaranta del
Quattrocento.
subjects – sculptural ceramics, the Renaissance
in the Marche, two of the least well-known
members of the Della Robbia dynasty – this
dense and rewarding book is an important
contribution to our understanding of the
sometimes complex and ambiguous interface
between art and devotion in Renaissance Italy.