Keywords: Workshop of Santi Buglioni - The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane - Walters 27223.jpg The Buglioni workshop specialized in glazed terracotta reliefs made popular by the Della Robbia workshop in Florence and they made a number of these altarpieces for eminent Florentine patrons in the late 15th and early 16th centuries The Walters' Nativity altarpiece 27 212 attributed to Andrea Della Robbia 1435-1525 shares obvious characteristics with this piece-its arched frame decorative garlands of fruit and flowers and prominent display of family heraldry The large scale and choice of subject in this example created further challenges It is hard to fire such a large piece The seams from firing the different sections separately are evident as are faults in the glaze in some areas The challenge of depicting a drama set in a landscape has been unevenly met The exhaustion of the apostles and the despair of Christ are brilliantly brought out by the naturalism that can be achieved in modeled clay However there is a reason that naturalistic landscape settings with receding spaces and clouds are almost never attempted in glazed terracotta relief this is a medium for bold effects but it is difficult to control for nuanced details ca 1525 1535 Renaissance terracotta with glaze cm 247 5 183 accession number 27 223 19906 Palazzo Bourtourlin Florence Raoul Heilbroner date and mode of acquisition unknown Henry Walters Baltimore date and mode of acquisition unknown Henry Walters Auction American Art Association New York January 11-13 1934 no 538 Walters Art Museum 1934 by purchase Museum purchase formerly part of the Walters Collection 1934 place of origin Florence Italy Walters Art Museum license 2D Renaissance applied arts in the Walters Art Museum Santi Buglioni Media contributed by the Walters Art Museum needs category review Agony in the Garden Terracottas in the United States |