Model for a portrait medal of Francesco Redi

On the obverse is a portrait of Francesco Redi (1626 –1698). The reverse shows a galley at sea surrounded by tritons and mermaids, and the “Medici stars” in the sky. Wax-on-slate models for medals are relatively rare (see also No. 80). Pyke records only a few extant wax modelli by Soldani.(1) A modello dated 1685 for an unexecuted medal of Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703), Florentine scientist and mathematician and assistant to Galileo Galilei, and its reverse, both in their original frames, are kept in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.(2)

The subject of the Lehman modello is Francesco Redi, who played a central role in the scientific and cultural world of late seventeenth-century Florence. He was chief court physician to the grand dukes of Tuscany, Ferdinando II and Cosimo III, but was also a poet, philosopher, and naturalist. In 1657 he had been one of the founders of the Accademia del Cimento, together with Galileo. The reverse of the modello shows the so-called Medici stars (the four moons of Jupiter), which were discovered and named by Galileo. Soldani produced a number of medals of Redi, the earliest one, for which these preparatory models in wax were made, dates from 1677. Three more medals followed in 1684, personally commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo III.(3) Together they attest to the great esteem in which Redi was held at the Tuscan court.

Soldani produced more than fifty medals in a span of almost sixty years. The Redi medal, of which the Lehman wax-on-slate designs are the modello, is one of the earliest by the artist, predating his intensive training as a medalist and sculptor in Rome. In his autobiographical letter of 18 September 1718, Soldani recalled how he was sent to Rome in 1680 by Cosimo III de’ Medici to improve his skills under Ciro Ferri and Ercole Ferrata.(4) The Lehman modelli provide a good demonstration of Soldani’s early competence in the field of wax modeling, even though they lack the anatomical and proportional qualities of his later work.(5) In a letter of 1679, Soldani’s initial phases as a medalist are confirmed by the grandducal secretary, Bassetti, mentioning “a young man [Soldani], whom we have already introduced to [the art of] sculpting medals and coins and their stamps and dies.”(6) These two designs are arguably the earliest extant modelli for a medal by Soldani and belong to the small group of designs that the grand duke ordered from the artist before his Roman sojourn. As Prospero Maria Conti noted in his vita of Soldani: “Who [Cosimo], after having seen some of his drawings, as well as models of bas reliefs full of elegance, and a terracotta putto one braccio high made from life, immediately ordered from him a number of designs for medals, and for portraits to be later executed in bronze.”(7)

Catalogue entry from: Frits Scholten. The Robert Lehman Collection. European Sculpture and Metalwork, Vol. XII. Frits Scholten, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2011, cat. no. 106, pp. 140-1.

Notes:
1. E.J. Pyke. A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, Oxford, 1973, pp. 139, 140; E.J. Pyke. A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, London, 1981, p. 38.
2. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, rom 972.446 a,b
(Charles Avery and Corey Keeble. Florentine Baroque Bronzes and Other Objects of Art. Exh. Cat. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, pp. 68 – 70). For a late example — a model for the reverse of the medal of Pope Clement XII from 1731 — see Victoria and Albert Museum, a.39-1932 (Marjorie Trusted, ed. The Making of Sculpture: The Materials and Technique of European Sculpture, London, 2007, fig. 117).
3. Toronto 1975, pp. 66, 67; John Spike. "The Life of the Mind: The Portraiture of Francesco Redi (1627-1697), Physician, Philosopher and Poet." In Baroque Portraiture in Italy: Works from North American Collections. Exh. cat. John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1984-5, pp. 20-7; Charles Avery. Baroque Sculpture and Medals in the Art Gallery of Ontario: The Margaret and Ian Ross Collection, Toronto, 1988, nos. 31 – 34.
4. Klaus Lankheit. Florentische Barockplastik: Die Kunst am Hofe der letzen Medici, 1679-1743. Munich, 1962, pp. 112, 232 – 33, doc. no. 47.
5. Ibid., p. 115.
6. “Un giovane [Soldani], che habbiamo già introdotto nella Scultura delle Medaglie e delle Monete e loro Ponzoni.” Ibid., p. 276, doc. no. 299.
7. “Il quale [Cosimo III] avendo veduto alcuni suoi disegni, e modelli di Bassirilievi ripieni d’eleganza, ed un Putto alto un Braccio di terracotta fatto dal naturale, gli ordinò tosto vari disegni di medaglie, e di ritratti da doversi poscia esprimere in bronzo.” Prospero Maria Conti’s vita of Soldani, ca. 1745, in Lankheit 1962,pp. 240 – 43, doc. no. 51 (quotation on p. 241).

Inscription: Inscribed on the obverse: FRANCISCVS RE DI .
MDCLXXVII; inscribed on the reverse: SONo. E. [l?] MIO.
SEGNIO. E. L MIO. CONFORTO. SOLO

Henry Oppenheimer, London; Oppenheimer sale, Christie’s, London, 28 July 1936, lot 231 ( to [ John Hunt, London]). Acquired by Robert Lehman through Hunt from the Oppenheimer sale.