A set of four Continental biscuit porcelain figures of putti, emblematic of The Four Seasons, probably second-half 18th century

The Property of a European Collector, Christie's London, 9 July 2001, lot 139.

Related Literature

Jonathan Marsden, European Sculpture in the Collection of His Majesty The King, 2025.

These significant biscuit porcelain figures are distinguished by their bold execution, refined surface finish, and substantial scale. They demonstrate a clear stylistic affinity with the marbles and terracottas of the Roman sculptor Camillo Rusconi (1658–1728), while subtle deviations in modelling and detail set them apart from the original compositions. The present four figures appear to constitute a unique ensemble, with all four examples surviving together. 

Camillo Rusconi was one of the last great Roman sculptors of the late Baroque period. He was schooled in Milan, and at the age of fifteen he went to study with Giuseppe Rusnati, the Milanese sculptor who had worked with Ercole Ferrata in Rome. At twenty-eight, Rusconi went to Rome to work with the master, and there he was influenced by the high Baroque styles of the previous generation, Algardi and Bernini. His early works as an independent sculptor include the four plaster Virtues for the Ludovisi Chapel in Sant'Ignazio, Rome, and figures of putti at Santi Vito e Modesto and San Salvatore in Lauro; but he is perhaps most celebrated for his tomb of Pope Gregory XIII in St Peter’s, and the four large scale marble statues for Borromini's niches in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.

Rusconi’s marbles of four putti emblematic of the Seasons were commissioned, probably in the mid-1690s, by the marchese Niccolò Maria Pallavicini (1650–1714), the celebrated patron of the arts, and banker to the Roman nobility, for his Palazzo all’Orso. The art historian and collector, Lione Pascoli (1674–1744), wrote of the commission: “Stretta trattanto avea, forte amicizia col marchese Niccolò Maria Pallavicini, che molto si dilettava di pitture, e sculture, e volle, che gli sacesse quattro putti, che rappresentassero le quattro stagioni, che prontamente suron satti da lui insìeme con un modello d'un crocisisso di tre palmi…”, [He {Rusconi} had a close friendship with the marquis Niccolò Maria Pallavicini, who was very fond of paintings and sculptures, and wanted him to sculpt four putti representing the four seasons, which he promptly made for him together with a model of a three-palm crucifix…], Pascoli, Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, 1730.

Upon their completion they were displayed, on veneered onice alabastro pedestals, in the marchese's great picture gallery. When Pallavicini died in 1714, the contents of his Palazzo were gradually dispersed, and by the end of the 18th century, pictures from his gallery were recorded in great English country estates, including Stourhead, Keddleston, Houghton and Chatsworth. The exact date of the marbles leaving Rome is unclear though by 1726, the marbles were part of the British royal collection of King George I and were displayed at Kensington Palace. This is confirmed by a payment record to the sculptor Giovanni Battista Guelfi, a student of Rusconi, who received £20 for ‘mending the Boys and Pedistals [sic] at Kensington &c’. The timing of the purchase of the marbles coincided with the remodelling works carried out by William Kent on the Kensington Palace state apartments, and specifically the King’s Gallery between 1725 and 1727.

The placement of the marbles in England is further referred to in a letter by the sculptor Filippo della Valle (1698–1768), a peer and friend of Rusconi, who wrote to Monsignore Giovanni Bottari on 10th January 1732, that Rusconi's marbles had been sold and were in the ‘regio gabinetto’, [Royal Cabinet], in England, having cost four thousand ducats: '...trasportati in Inghilterra, e sono adesso nel regio gabinetto mediante il prezzo di scudi quattro mila'. (Giovanni Gaetano Bottari and Stefano Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura scritta da’ più celebri personaggi dei secoli XV, XVI, e XVII., Vol. II. pp. 315-16.) In a passage in the same letter della Valle refers to Rusconi making a ‘beautiful clay child for his study, playing with some bunches of grapes, which, when visited by Carlo Maratta, was highly esteemed.’, perhaps a reference to the model of Autumn.

The first pictorial record of the marbles in England dates to a century later when, in 1816, Charles Wild produced a watercolour of the King's Gallery, for William Henry Pyne's History of the Royal Residences (1816–1819). In it, they are depicted placed on their onyx pedestals and situated between windows and two lacquer cabinets supporting blue and white porcelain. Today the marbles have been reinstated, in the manner of Kent’s hang, in the King's Gallery, inv. nos. RCIN 71424-71427.

The models were most recently discussed by Jonathan Marsden in his talk ‘Changing Seasons: Sculptural Metamorphoses from the Royal Collection’ at the Haughton International Seminar in 2025. Marsden noted that the marbles at Palazzo all’Orso were accessible to students of the French Academy in Rome, who were encouraged to study and copy them. A surviving drawing study of the figure of Winter by Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700–1777), who was a student at the academy between 1723 and 1725, provides further support that the marbles were still in Rome in the early 1720s.

In addition to the marbles, Rusconi produced finished terracottas of the same subjects. A pair of terracottas survive, approx. 51 cm high, depicting Summer and Winter; this pair was in the Arthur M. Sackler collection, sold, Replica Shoes ’s, New York, 29 January 2010, lot 461, illustrated in Dr. Charles Avery, Finger Prints of the Artist, European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York, 1981, pp. 82-85, cat. nos. 25-26. A further pair of terracottas representing Spring and Autumn, catalogued as models by Rusconi, were at Galerie Patrice Bellanger, Paris in 1996. Unlike these highly finished pairs, a smaller coarser terracotta of Winter, circa 1711, 31cm high, is in Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome, inv. no. PV13264, believed to be an early study, or bozzetto, by Rusconi; and a second terracotta of Winter of the same scale, 27 cm high, is in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, inv. no. N.sk-599.

The survival of variations of these models in a variety of materials suggest they may have been widely accessible in the 18th century: for example, a lead figure of Summer is in the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, mus. no. MY39; and another figure of Summer, in black basalt, perhaps by Wedgwood, is in the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, AFI.3262.2008. Indeed, Marsden notes 18th century records of “the seasons ‘from Rusconi’” (presumably casts or plaster models) were among the stock of plasterman Peter Vanina and included in his sale on 4–5 April 1770 (lot 65).

The present porcelain sculptures, remarkably imposing in scale and ambitious in execution, represent an artistic and technical feat that only the most accomplished and ingenuous manufacturers in Europe would have been able to achieve. Drawing closely on Rusconi’s Seasons, and yet with the clear hand of the porcelain sculptor evident, they appear to be unique, with no other comparables recorded in porcelain. The quality of these figures would suggest a leading manufacturer but as yet, it has been difficult to ascertain a firm attribution.