On display a selection of over 80 sculptures, drawings and artefacts to retrace the career of Giovan Battista Foggini, Grand Ducal sculptor, court architect and director of the Galleria Manufactories dedicated to the production of marvellous inlaid works in hard stones and precious metals.
The exhibition is divided into thematic sections that explore sculpture in marble, bronze and terracotta and the artist's work as an architect and designer. The exhibition opens with works relating to the artist's youthful activity, marked by his training in Rome at the Academy founded by Cosimo III, with drawings and terracotta works such as The Myth of Pygmalion. This is followed by a section dedicated to bronze sculpture, in which one can admire numerous small bronzes inspired by ancient literature, in particular Ovid's Metamorphoses. The works, coming from important Italian and international collections, are accompanied by their derivatives in wax, Doccia porcelain, plaster and biscuit, while on the walls are displayed in large format pages taken from the Journal of the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi, witnesses to the artist's tireless creative streak.
Among the works that can be admired in the other rooms are two of the eight portraits of the House of Medici sculpted by Foggini for Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, the famous Table inlaid with semiprecious stones from Palazzo Pitti, a series of reliquaries in bronze, ebony and silver, extraordinary for their technical quality and symbolic value, two late bronzes made for Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (The Baptism of Christ and David and Goliath).
The itinerary ends with a room dedicated to the presentation of some masterpieces that came out of the Botteghe di Galleria.
The exhibition is an opportunity to discover the multiplicity of Foggini’s works and his ability to mix artistic design with a magnificent and solemn visual language, particularly appreciated by the Medici family and a reference model for young Florentine artists.