Francesco Maria Nocchieri, born in Ancona,[1] was a seventeenth-century Italian sculptor of minor reputation active in Rome, where he spent time in the large studio of Bernini. He worked largely as a restorer of antiquities. He was among the many Roman sculptors patronised by Christina, Queen of Sweden in her retirement in Rome;[2] for Christina he executed an Apollo (1680) to complement a set of Roman sculptures of Muses that had been found at Hadrian's Villa, which were doubtless restored by Nocchieri;[3] the Apollo is now at La Granja de San Ildefonso.[4] The largest collection of Nocchieri's sculptures today are in the Gardens of Aranjuez, Madrid. A terracotta bozzetto at the Ashmolean Museum represents Apollo holding his lyre, attentive to the Muses.[5]
Some other sculptors in Rome renowned for their restorations
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edit- ^ The engraving of Nocchieri's Apollo with the antique Roman muses in Paolo Alessandro Maffei's Raccolta di statue antiche e moderne... dato in luce da Domenico de Rossi, Rome, 1704 (pls. CXI-CXX) is titled "Opera di Francesco Maria Nocchieri Anconitano".
- ^ Lilian H. Zirpolo, "Christina of Sweden's Patronage of Bernini: The Mirror of Truth Revealed by Time" Woman's Art Journal 26.1 (Spring - Summer 2005:38-43)
- ^ The Muses are at the Prado; they were identified as the group known to have come from Hadrian's Villa by Paul-Gustave Hübner "Le groupe des muses de la Villa d'Hadrien", Revue archéologique (Société française d'archéologie classique) :359-
- ^ Museo Nacional del Prado:Colección de esculturas de Cristina de Suecia
- ^ acc. no.WA.OA291. Nicholas Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the Present Day, 3 vols., Oxford 1992:68; Cultural Property, purchased ca. 1950[permanent dead link]