Giambologna Joins the Collection

Giambologna’s Fata Morgana is among the most significant additions to the CMA’s collection in decades. A preeminent sculptor, Giambologna (1529–1608) bridged the Renaissance genius of Michelangelo Buonarroti and the Baroque brilliance of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Fata Morgana is a masterpiece within his oeuvre, deploying his favorite subject in marble—the female nude—to express his trademark modeling and dynamism, bringing the mysterious figure to life. 
The Fata Morgana was commissioned by banker and political advisor Bernardo Vecchietti in the early 1570s for his villa “Il Riposo” southeast of Florence, Italy. Vecchietti, after having convinced the artist to remain in Italy instead of returning to his native Flanders, facilitated his appointment as court sculptor to the Medici dukes. Giambologna worked primarily in bronze and required the explicit approval of his Medici patrons to carve marble, a costly material primarily reserved for ducal and major public commissions. 

The square grotto that housed the Fata Morgana, where Vecchietti entertained guests on hot days, was likely designed by Giambologna as well. It was described by poet and art critic Raffaello Borghini in 1584: “[A] grotto made with great artifice, everything charmingly painted inside, [the water] falling into a large oval basin with a delightful sound. Above the basin that receives water, a most beautiful nude woman made out of marble by Giambologna in the act of leaving a cave; one hand is placed on her delicate breast and the other supports a seashell from which the water rises and falls back in to the basin, so it looks like quicksilver; and this beautiful woman represents the ‘Fata Morgana’ (after whom in ancient times the spring was named).”

The Fata Morgana was housed in the Vecchietti collection for 200 years before it was exported to England, where over time its illustrious authorship and provenance were forgotten. It was reattributed to Giambologna after appearing in a Christie’s sale in England on September 13, 1989, having been mistakenly catalogued as “an 18th c. white marble half-length figure of Venus Marina.” Only around 12 documented works in marble by Giambologna remain, just three of which are outside Italy: Samson Slaying the Philistine in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Seated Female Figure in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Fata Morgana was the final known marble by the artist in private hands.

Over the past decade, several acquisitions have strengthened the museum’s holdings of Italian paintings and sculpture from the 1500s, providing context for which Giambologna’s marble is the magnificent anchor. The once-in-a-generation acquisition of this internationally renowned sculpture reaffirms the CMA’s commitment to collecting works of the highest quality. The sculpture is now on view in a dedicated gallery of the Italian Renaissance collection, gallery 117B.