Private Collection, Italy

Standard surface abrasion and minor chips. Brownish lacquer on some of surface. Clean break through neck/shoulder area (repaired) and 3 repaired cracks to his proper left arm. One large toe lacking. Very stable. Beautifully modelled.
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This delightful terracotta figure of Cupid smiling is by Giuseppe Mazzuoli, the most prominent member of the celebrated Sienese family of sculptors, who worked with Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome and was instrumental in introducing the High Roman Baroque style of sculpture to Siena. The figure is clad in rippling swathes of windswept drapery that covers his eyes while he clutches his bow and places his foot firmly on his quiver of arrows. The composition is known in two other examples: a marble version by Giuseppe Mazzuoli, which sold at Sotheby’s London in 2011 (fig.1), and a terracotta example, painted to look like bronze and gilded, in the collection of the Istituto Statale d’Arte “Duccio di Boninsegna” in Siena, which was published by Butzek in 2007 (op. cit.) as a work of Giuseppe’s nephew Bartolomeo Mazzuoli.

Two Cupids are recorded in the inventory of the collection of terracotta models owned by the Mazzuoli workshop, compiled in Siena in 1767 by Giuseppe’s great nephew, also a sculptor. One Cupid is listed as the work of Giuseppe, while the other is described as a copy by Bartolomeo after his uncle Giuseppe’s original. (Butzek 1988, op. cit., p. 78 nos. ꦦ5 and 8): '8. Un Cupido in creta, originale del sudꦐetto Giuseppe' and '5. Un Cupido in creta, copia di Bartolomeo Mazzuoli, figlio del sudetto Gio.Antonio Mazzuoli'.

These two surviving terracottas, t🍷he present figure and the one now in Siena, appear to be the sculptures listed in the 1767 inventory. Furthermore, since the example now in Siena has been identified as the work of Bartolomeo, the present version must be Giuseppe’s original. The scale of this terracotta, 34 🎀cm, is approximately one-half the height of the marble version, a proportional relationship between terracotta models and finished works in marble that is repeatedly found in Italian Renaissance and Baroque sculpture.

It is likely that this highly finished preparatory model for the marble was later sold as a sculptꦛure in its own right, a documented practice in the Mazzuoli workshop. The version now in Siena, for example, was recorded in 1778 in the collection of Giuseppe Galgano Livi of Siena, where it was described in detail and believed to be the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The 18th century attribution to Bernini, while incorrect, reflects not only the quality of the work and the esteem in which it was held, but also its affinity with the works of Bernini, of whom Giuseppe Mazzuoli was a protégé. Giuseppe waไs involved in two major Roman commissions supervised by Bernini, the ciborium of St. Peters, for which Giuseppe created two terracotta models for bronze figures of Faith and Religion in 1674, and the tomb of Pope Alexander VII in St. Peters, for which he carved the figure of Charity according to Bernini’s designs (1672-75).

The subject matter of the blind cupid, the god of love, is an allegory for physical love, and suggests that the wo﷽rk was originally made for a secular setting, such as a private residence.

RELATED LITERATURE
M. Butzek, “Die Modellsammlung der Mazzuoli in Siena,” in Pantheon, XLVI, 1988, pp. 75-102
M. Butzek, “Cupido velato,” in Scultura barocca: Studi in terracotta dalla bottega dei Mazzuoli, exhibition catalogue, Petroio, Museo della Terracotta, 8 June - 9 September 2007, Cinisello Balsamo, 2007, pp. 46-47 no. 11
Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 2011, lot 81