Harvard Art Museums

Charity Treading on Avarice

Giuseppe MazzuoliLinkedCulture matchlcp-a9f37876c358

Date: c. 1715
Medium: Bronze
Culture: Italian
Department: Department of Paintings, Sculpture & Decorative Arts
Institution: Harvard Art Museums
Object ID: 54426

From the Harvard Art Museums record

Giuseppe Mazzuoli's allegorical figure of Charity is personified as a mother with three children. As the greatest of all theological virtues, Charity triumphs over the vice of Avarice, represented as a greedy man biting his left hand and clutching a bag of coins with the other. This sculptural group recalls the influence of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who Mazzuoli often assisted with large public commissions. Among these was the tomb for Pope Alexander VII (1672-78) in Saint Peter's Basilica, for which Mazzuoli sculpted a more than life-sized figure of Charity in marble. This earlier work is recalled here in Mazzuoli's voluptuous bronze figure. The dynamic drapery, multifigured composition, and spiraling movement of the group also point to Mazzuoli's indebtedness to Bernini.

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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Provenance: [Eugene Glaenzer & Co., New York, NY], sold; to Watson B. Dickerman, New York, NY (1910), by descent; to Dickerman family (1923) (1); to Watson B. Dickerman, Scottsdale, Arizona, gift; to Harvard University Art Museums, 2003. Notes: 1. The sculpture may have passed from Watson B. Dickerman’s father to his mother, Florence E. Dickerman, who died in 1963.