Circle of Andrea Riccio 1470-1532

Heim Gallery, London

Heim Summer 1972, no. 26; Washington, New York, Cambridge 1979-1982, no. 6 (illus.); New York 1981, no. 5

Padua 2000, p. 119; Sgarbi 2006, p. 94; Trento 2008, p. 29, p. 63, fig. 46 (illus.), p. 252

Surface abrasions, losses and restorations throughout. Some age cracks. Restorations include: horizontal break though knee area and chest, vertical repaired break in center and another near her waist. Restorations to some fingers and toes as well as her proper right wrist and proper right back side. Restorations throughout the drapery. Losses to several toes and to wheel on her proper right side and to some points of crown. Some in-painting on surface. With metal support on the reverse. Well modeled.
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This elegant high relief of Saint Catherine is among a group of terracottas which have been the subject of decades of serious scholarly dialogue regarding the complex field of Paduan terracotta sculpture. The fluency of the drapery, the ornamentation, the athletic limbs, deep-set eye sockets are among the characteristics of a coherent group of works that have been isolated by scholars including Fabricsy, Planiscig, Kris and Gentilini.

In recent years, the traditional attribution of this figure of Saint Catherine to Giovanni Minelli was discarded and the authorship of the important Paduan contemporary of Minelli, Giovanni de Fondulis, or Giovanni di Fondulino Fonduli da Crema, was corroborated. Scholars have recently reconstructed the oeuvre of this innovative sculptor, who worked with other major artists of the Italian Renaissance including Andrea Riccio, and now attribute the majority of sculptures once given Minelli to him. Fondulis is praised for his hyper-realistic reinterpretation of the naturalism pioneered in the work of Donatello and Andrea Mantegna in Padua a generation before and he has gained a reputation of one of the most pivotal artists of the late 15^th century Veneto.

In the 2008 exhibition in Trento regarding Riccio and his contemporaries, Gentilini (op. cit.) gives the attribution of the present figure and the markedly similar figure of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin (Trento 2008, op.cit., fig. 12),  to 'Andrea Riccio ?'. Several sculptures ascribed to Fondulis in the past have in fact been recently ascribed to Riccio and there are a series of sculptures which illustrate that these two sculptors' styles were linked. A comparison between the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Pièta of 1485 and Riccio's Pièta of 1490-1500 in Santo Stefano (Trento 2008, op.cit., pp.26-28) demonstrates that Riccio likely looked to Fondulis' naturalism and expressive drapery style to create some of his works. Fondulis' best-known work, the signed partially gilt bronze Seated Goddess in the Wallace Collection, London, has also been compared with Riccio's later bronzes of female figures. Furthermore, the terracotta figure of Saint John the Evangelist in Padua (Trento 2008, op.cit., fig.45), has been ascribed as: 'Giovanni de Fonduli e Andrea Riccio'.

It has been suggested by Gentilini, that Riccio may have in fact been trained by Fondulis. Nevertheless, what is clear here is that the Sackler Saint Catherine is related to Riccio's early work, such as his Virtues (Trento 2008, op. cit., figs. 13-15), and his Madonna and Child in the Kunstmuseen, Krefeld (Trento 2008, op. cit., fig. 42)(fig. 1). The elongated figure draped in easy curvilinear folds coupled with areas of clingy and wrinkled folds (as in the knees of the standing figures), the arched eyebrows, classical nose, slightly parted lips and elongated face with a squared jaw are all idiosyncratic of Riccio's work in terracotta.