274. Luca della Robbia (1400-1482),

Italian, Tondo Portrait of a Lady, 1465.

Glazed terracotta, Diameter: 54 cm.

Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

 

 

Luca Della Robbia

(1400 Florence - 1482 Florence)

 

Italian sculptor, Luca della Robbia was the son of a Florentine named Simone di Marco della Robbia. During the early part of his life Luca executed many important and exceedingly beautiful pieces of sculpture in marble and bronze. In technical skill he was quite the equal of Ghiberti, and, while possessing all Donatello’s vigour, dramatic power and originality, he frequently excelled him in grace of attitude and soft beauty of expression. No sculptured work of the great fifteenth century ever surpassed the singing gallery, which Luca made for the cathedral at Florence between 1431 and 1440, with its ten magnificent panels of singing angels and dancing boys.

The most important existing work in marble by Luca (executed in 1454-1456) is the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of Fiesole. A beautiful effigy of the bishop in a restful pose lies on a sarcophagus sculptured with graceful reliefs of angels holding a wreath containing the inscription. A rectangular frame formed of painted tiles of exquisite beauty, though out of keeping with the memorial, surrounds the effigy. The few other works of this class that exist do not approach the beauty of this early essay in tile painting, on which Luca evidently put forth his utmost skill and patience.

In the latter part of his life Luca was mainly occupied with the production of terracotta reliefs covered with enamel, a process that he improved upon, but did not invent, as Vasari asserts. The rationale of this process was to cover the clay relief with enamel formed of the ordinary ingredients of glass (marzacotto), made white and opaque by tin oxide. In 1471 Luca was elected president of the Florentine Guild of Sculptors, but he refused this great honour on account of his age and infirmity. It demonstrates, however, the high estimation in which his contemporaries held him.