Bust of Anima Beata
Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656–1740)
after
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680)
1705-07
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The marble originals of ‘Anima Beata’ and ‘Anima Dannata’ by Bernini, the supreme sculptural genius of the baroque, were carved around 1619 for his patron Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya for the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli in Rome. They are currently in the Palazzo di Spagna there, which is the Spanish embassy to the Holy See, where they are not readily accessible to the general public. For all that they are therefore inevitably less famous than such works of approximately the same period as the ‘David’ and the ‘Apollo and Daphne’, both in the Villa Borghese, they are undeniably among the most powerfully expressive as well as the most silkily finished of all his early works.
It seems reasonable to assume that Soldani owned casts of both busts, which he could readily have acquired during his student years in Rome, and in 1705 he proposed that he should produce bronzes of the pair, which he described as ‘cose di bellissima maniera’ (things in the most beautiful style). The documentary record confirms that by 1707 they had been completed. It is hard to imagine that even Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein, for all that by that date he was intimately familiar with Soldani’s remarkable prowess as a bronze caster, was not dazzled by the new arrivals when they reached him in Vienna. There is no denying the fact that to a modern eye the charms of the ‘Anima Beata’ (Blessed Soul) are dangerously saccharine, and they are certainly no match for the hyperrealist physiognomical distortions of the ‘Anima Dannata’ (Damned Soul). Be that as it may, it is important to recognise both that Soldani was splendidly undaunted by the challenge of trying to measure up to Bernini, and indeed that he was willing to go his own way in certain admittedly minor particulars. Thus, for example, the rose that forms the centrepiece of the floral garland on Soldani’s ‘Anima Beata’ has a more elaborately pattern of petals than its Berninian prototype.
It has been the fate of the ‘Anima Dannata ‘to play a more interesting role within the history of the collection over the last century or so than might have been desired. It was sold in 1920, then resurfaced in 1929 at an auction in Berlin before vanishing without trace for many decades. The re-acquisition by Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein of such a stupendous lost sheep in 1993 must be numbered among the most happy chances in the recent history of the collection.
- Material/technique
- bronze, with original red-gold lacquer patina, socle of beige limestone
- Measurements
- Bronze 39.5 × 27.8 × 23.5 cm, plinth 21.0 × 21.0 × 15.5 cm, total 60.0 × 27.5 × 23.5 cm
- Acquisition
- acquired in 1707 by Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein
- Currently exhibited
- Garden Palace, permanent presentation
- Artists/makers/authors
- Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi
- after Gian Lorenzo Bernini
- Inventory number
- SK 516
- Provenance
- Suggested as a subject for bronzes in 1705 by the artist Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein together with the Anima Dannata (inv. no. SK 517); acquired in 1707 by Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein
- Place of origin
- Florence
- Iconography
- States of the Soul
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