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Clay and Marble. New Sculptures by Giusto Le Court in Vienna and Warsaw

At a Dorotheum art auction in Vienna, a twenty- eight-centimetre-tall terracotta sculpture was sold not long ago, described as the bust of a bearded man, the work of an unknown artist from the end of the 17th century. In this Viennese terracotta bust, we can, with some degree of certainty, recognise the work of the famous sculptor Giusto Le Court (Ypres, 1627 – Venice, 7 October 1679). The sculpture in question is a bust of St Paul, the marble version of which can be found in the chapel of Bernardo Nave’s villa in Cittadella, Padua. Both The terracotta and the marble bust were produced as smaller versions of the head of the colossal statue of St Paul from the Venetian church Santa Maria della Salute, which can be dated back to the 1670s. Upon Bernardo Nave’s wishes, Le Court shrunk and reworked the figures of the Apostles from the Venetian church and the monumental statue of the Virgin Mary on her main altar into a bust format. The cycle of apostles from Salute is also related to the marble thirty-two- centimetre- tall head on display at the National Museum in Warsaw. Up till now, it has been recognised as the head of St Hieronymus, a work of an unknown Roman sculptor from the 17th century ; however, we must connect it to the statue of the apostle Bartholomew, or rather with his bust in Ca’ Nave, made for a yet unknown collector. St Bartholomew’s head in Warsaw opens up new questions about the possible existence of other heads which could have been produced by Le Court as smaller versions of the famous apostles from Salute as well as other replicas of his own works on a smaller scale which were intended for collectors and have remained unknown until now.

Giusto Le Court, St Paul, terracotta models, Vienna, St Bartholomew, marble, Warsaw, Venetian baroque sculpture

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