1683 - ANTON MARIA MARAGLIANO

ANTON MARIA MARAGLIANO Crucified Christ Carved and painted wood, h 170 cm This extraordinary Crucifix, carved with profound sensitivity and sentimental depth, embellished with naturalistic polychromy—still perfectly intact—which lends the flesh tones a poignant porcelain-like effect, can be traced to the substantial body of monumental polychrome wooden crucifixes associated with Anton Maria Maragliano between the second and fourth decades of the 18th century. A leading exponent of the Genoese Baroque in the field of wooden sculpture, Maragliano developed artistically in the workshops of Giuseppe Arata and later in that of his uncle Giovan Battista Agnesi, with a period of training under Giovanni Andrea Torre, during which he familiarized himself with the techniques of another important master, Giambattista Bissone. Due to its close stylistic, typological, and iconographic affinities—evident in the rendering of the elaborate hairstyles, the distinctive modulation, and the imaginative compositional arrangement of the figures of Christ in powerful diagonal perspectives on the Cross— fits perfectly into the tradition of important crucifixes produced between 1710 and 1739 by Anton Maria Maragliano and the workshop where his closest collaborators worked. This work is accompanied by a critical essay by David Lucidi, excerpts of which are included here. Bibliography: D. Sanguineti, Maragliano, Anton Maria, in “Dizionario biografico degli Italiani,” 2007, under the entry D. Sanguineti, Anton Maria Maragliano, “Insignis sculptor Genue,” Genoa, 2013