Spring and Autumn - Workshop of D. PARODI (1672-1742) & F.M. BIGGI (1676

Workshop of Domenico PARODI (1672-1742)
and Francesco Maria BIGGI (1676-1736)
Allegories of Spring and Autumn

Pair of busts in white marble
standing on Portor marble bases
titled "Spring" and "Autumn"

Genoa, Italy
First third of the 18th century

total height : 46,5 cm (Spring)
total height : 47 cm (Autumn)
height of the bases : 11 cm

Provenance :
Marchioness Rodez-Benavent, Montpellier, and thence by family decent until 2023.

Domenico Parodi was probably trained as a sculptor by his father, the Genoese Baroque master Filippo Parodi (1630-1702). He soon turned to painting and became the great master of Genoese decorative projects of his time. He found the best carver for his models in the talented marble sculptor Francesco Maria Biggi, who had trained in his father's workshop on his return from Rome. After Filippo's death, Domenico and Francesco worked together on many of the most important decorative projects in Genoa, including the Albergo dei Poveri, the Chiesa del Gesù e dei Santi Ambrogio e Andrea and the Palazzo Rosso. The fame of their successful collaboration spread as far as Vienna, where we can admire, in the Marble Gallery of the Lower Belvedere, a series of gods and allegorical figures carved by Baggi after Domenico’s designs (circa 1720). After Biggi's death, deprived of his main collaborator, Domenico devoted himself exclusively to painting.

Apart from the few details provided by the biographer and art historian Carlo Giuseppe Ratti (1737-1795), little is known about Francesco Maria Biggi's life and career, largely hidden in Domenico's shadow. However, Ratti describes him as a hard worker, a highly talented marble sculptor and a teacher devoted to his pupils. We might add to this incomplete portrait that Biggi developed a distinctly Genoese style, revisiting the Roman Baroque of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in a less theatrical and more decorative vein. His manner is characterized by dancing silhouettes with supple forms, delicate and youthful faces, subtle draping effects and highly variated surface rendering.

The allegorical busts of Spring and Autumn, from a series on the four seasons, were probably made after models by Domenico Parodi. They are typical of the marbles produced by Francesco Biggi and his collaborators, particularly the smiling face of Spring, almost ecstatic with half-open lips and up-raised eyes. The gentle features of these two busts, full of joy, are reminiscent of those of the angels in the abbey church of Lambach (Austria), or of another allegorical bust of Spring (in the Genoese art market), all executed by Biggi after Domenico Parodi (cf. D. Sanguineti, L. Stagno (eds.), op. cit, pp. 27 and 88).

Bibliography :
"Domenico Parodi: L'Arcadia in giardino", D. Sanguineti, L. Stagno (dir.), cat. exp. Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino, Gênes, 2022.