Vittoriano
The terracotta model preserved at the Museo di Palazzo Venezia (inv. nos. 13340, 13471; 47 x 53 x 20 cm), originating from the collection of the tenor Evangelista Gorga (1865–1957), is a reduced-scale reproduction of the monumental Fountain of the Four Rivers, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and executed with his workshop between 1648 and 1651.
The work, which arrived in numerous fragments and lacking several parts, preserves the perforated rocky base and two of the four river gods that adorn the famous fountain in Piazza Navona: the Ganges, holding the oar, and the Río de la Plata, beside the coins. Also recognizable are parts of the legs of the Danube and the Nile, along with natural elements such as the wind-blown palm tree and animals including the dragon and the lion’s paws.
Thanks to the restoration carried out by Susanna Sarmati, the work now reveals the refinement of its modelling, characterized by delicate chiaroscuro transitions obtained through the use of narrow-toothed rasps.
Unlike the autograph terracotta models by Bernini or his workshop, this specimen—showing no traces of modelling tools or fingerprints—may have been executed in an academic context or intended for the casting of bronze models.
It stands as tangible evidence of the eighteenth-century appreciation of Bernini’s masterpieces and their role in artistic education of the time.
