Desiderio da Settignano

The recorded working language is Italian. The field of work recorded is art of sculpture. Works named in the authority record are Mary Magdalene by Desiderio da Settignano, Laughing Boy, Marsuppini monument, bust of Marietta Strozzi, Bust of a young woman and Chimney piece, by workshop of Desiderio da Settignano. Work by Desiderio da Settignano is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Canada and Kunsthistorisches Museum.

He came from a family of stone carvers and stonemasons in Settignano, near Florence. Although his work shows the influence of Donatello, specifically in his use of low reliefs, it is most likely that he received his training in the large Florentine workshop run by Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino.[1] Desiderio matriculated into the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname, Florence's guild of Stone and Woodworkers, in 1453[2] and shortly thereafter already was supplying cherub head medallions for the frieze running across the front of the Pazzi Chapel in the second cloisteryard of the Basilica of Santa Croce. ex • Illustration — Memorial Tomb for Carlo Marsuppini, 1453–55, Santa Croce, Florence

In 1461 (or 1460–1464) he finished a tabernacle intended for installation either in the Sacrament Chapel in San Lorenzo, dedicated to the Medici family saints, Cosmas and Damian, located in the left transept of the church; or, more likely, it was first installed in the main chapel choir.[3] For his Tabernacle of the Sacrament, Desiderio returned (as he had done earlier for the Marsuppini Tomb) to a prototype originated by his probable master, Bernardo Rossellino. This time, Desiderio found his inspiration in Rossellino's c. 1450 tabernacle for the chapel in the St Giles church of the Women's Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. What Desiderio produced is unquestionably one of the most decoratively delightful examples of early Renaissance sculpture. The composition consists of a pilaster framed aedicula within which a spatially receding barrel vault leads the eye back to the actual doorway of the sacramental closet. In the lunette above is a half-length figure of God/Christ energetically displaying an open book in reference to Revelations 1:8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega; the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord." Halfway down this illusionary corridor, angels rush in from side passages, their draperies fluttering with the pictorial excitement of Fra Filippo Lippi. The aedicula of the tabernacle is surmounted by an elaborately framed lunette that encloses an image of the blessing Christ Child, standing upon the sacramental chalice, flanked by bowing angels. Two more angels, holding tall candelabra, stand in weight-shift pose to either side of the tabernacle. All of this, apparently, rested upon a base containing a relief of the Lamentation, which seems rather out of place in an otherwise festive context. Yet this remembrance of Christ's Passion is essential to Desiderio's iconographic program. The body of Christ forms the base upon which his spiritual body (in the form of the sacrament) is contained and above which the Benediction is given. Wherever its first location was, the tabernacle was removed in 1677, taken apart and reassembled for use in the Neroni family chapel in the right transept. For the Neroni, the sculptural components of the tabernacle were recomposed, with the flanking candelabra angels placed in reverse, in outwardly facing positions. Console blocks were used to support the tabernacle which, in a final Baroque touch, was set against a background of colored marble slabs. More recently, the tabernacle has been relocated to the right side of the nave of San Lorenzo and reconstructed in accordance with what is believed to have been the sculptor's original intent, although it is thought that a number of elements have disappeared. • Illustration — Saint Jerome in the Desert, c. 1461, National Gallery of Art The Lamentation relief provides a fine example of Desiderio's talent for low relief carving, but really does not display his mastery of rilievo schiaccato, in the execution of which he was second only to Donatello.

For Desiderio's handling of relief in marble we must turn to his "flattened relief" panel of Saint Jerome at Prayer in the Desert (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) or his tondo of the Meeting of Christ and John the Baptist as Youths (Louvre, Paris). The Saint Jerome "comes as close to painting as sculpture can get and the expressive faces of Christ and John in the tondo demonstrate the 15th-century appreciation of Desiderio by Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, who spoke of "the dreamy Desiderio, so gentle and beautiful".[4]

Beyond the Marsuppini tomb and the San Lorenzo tabernacle, little of Desiderio's work is documented or dated and a chronological reconstruction of his artistic development is a matter of conjecture based upon stylistic comparisons. The extent of his autograph work has been debated; many works sometimes attributed to him might be better given to assistants, followers, or to his brother Geri, with whom he frequently collaborated. • Illustration — Child (The Christ Child?), 1455–60, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1937.1.113)

Desiderio made great contributions in the field of portraiture especially as it came to the representation of children. This was a genre which he practically reinvented, drawing upon Roman examples of the Augustan Age. Such sculptures present their youthful subjects with informality even animation; often with open-mouthed expression, they convey a sense of immediacy. His name has been connected with several marble and wooden female busts. The best of these include the Marble Bust of Marietta Strozzi in Berlin that projects a soft, ethereal beauty that seems to originate from a marble surface that glows from within the stone. Throughout his brief career, one of the most telling characteristics of his technique was his unusual ability to give to his sculptures a textural sensuousness that might seem to demand touch: of all Quattrocento sculptors, Desiderio was, perhaps, the most tactile in his appeal. His work displays true understanding for the crystalline luminosity of marble and how a gently polished and modulated surface could produce an inner glow and how Donatello's famed rilievo schiacciato could be further refined to convey a sense of light softly diffused by its passage through atmosphere. At his best Desiderio da Settignano was a sculptor of soft persuasion and subtle nuances. Ref missing. Giorgio Vasari includes a biography of Desiderio da Settignano in his Lives of the Artists (1550/1568).[5] According to Vasari, his last work was the painted wooden statue of St. Mary Magdalene, now in Santa Trinita, left unfinished and completed by Benedetto da Maiano after Desiderio's death. Desiderio da Settignano died in Florence in 1464. The most famous of his pupils was Simone Ferrucci.

In situ • Penitent Magdalene, (attributed, 1455), Basilica of the Holy Trinity, Florence • Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini (1459) in Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence • The Altar of the Sacrament in San Lorenzo (completed in 1461 or 1464), Basilica di San Lorenzo Bargello Museum • Madonna and Child in Swaddling Clothes, marble relief • Portrait of a Boy Looking Down/San Giovannino (c. 1450–55), pietra serena • Young John the Baptist, marble bust

• Laughing Boy (c. 1464), marble bust, Kunsthistorisches Museum (9104), Vienna, Austria • Meeting of Christ and John the Baptist as Youths, marble relief tondo, Louvre, Paris, France • Julius Caesar in Profile (c. 1460), marble high relief, Louvre, Paris • Marietta Strozzi (c. 1460), marble bust,[9] Bode Museum (77), Berlin, Germany • Olimpia, Queen of Macedonia (c. 1460), Galería de las Colecciones Reales, Madrid, Spain

• Bust of a Young Boy (c. 1460), marble bust, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA • Beauregard Madonna with Standing Christ Child (c. 1455), marble relief, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA[6] • The Virgin and Child (c. 1455–1460), marble relief, Philadelphia Museum of Art[7] National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. • A Little Boy (c. 1455–1460), marble bust[8] • The Christ Child (?) (c. 1460), marble bust • Saint Jerome in the Desert (c. 1461), marble relief[10] • Ciborium of the Sacrament (c. 1460s), marble, with 19th century compliments[11] • Illustration — Laughing Boy, 1460–65, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna • Illustration — San Giovannino, c. 1450–55, Macigno stone, Bargello, Florence • Illustration — Meeting of Christ and John the Baptist as Youths, 1455–57, Louvre, Paris • Illustration — The Virgin and Child, c. 1455–60, Philadelphia Museum of Art • Illustration — Olimpia, Queen of Macedonia, c. 1460, Galería de las Colecciones Reales, Madrid • Illustration — St. John the Baptist of Casa Martelli (attributed), Bargello, Florence • Illustration — Penitent Magdalene, 1455 (attr.), Basilica of the Holy Trinity, Florence

The authorities additionally record the headings Desiderio Da Settignano, Desiderio di Bartolommeo di Francesco dello Ferro, Francesco Del Ferro, Francesco Del Ferro Desiderio Di Bartolommeo Di and Desiderio de Settignano. His recorded language was Italian.

Works recorded as notable number 7: Mary Magdalene by Desiderio da Settignano, Laughing Boy, Marsuppini monument, bust of Marietta Strozzi, Bust of a young woman, Chimney piece, by workshop of Desiderio da Settignano and The Virgin and Child.

Desiderio da Settignano is recorded with the occupation sculptor.