Christ and Thomas Luca della Robbia

Luca della Robbia was one of the most outstanding sculptors in fifteenth-century Florence. He often collaborated with the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and is regarded as the inventor of the glazed terracotta technique. The coloured majolica statues produced at the Della Robbia workshop from the midfifteenth century onwards rapidly became extremely popular. Even today, they decorate countless buildings in Florence. The Budapest terracotta statuette portrays Saint Thomas as he places his hands in Jesus’s wounds so that he might be persuaded that the Saviour had indeed risen from the dead. The narrative account from the Gospel according to John (20:24-29) was a popular topic of artistic works. Luca della Robbia’s Christ and Saint Thomas may have been a model for a niche in the outer wall of the Orsanmichele Church in Florence. The Florentine guilds and other bodies were responsible for the decoration of the church’s fourteen exterior wall niches; one of them belonged to the Mercanzia, a body supervising commerce and the Florentine guilds. The glazed terracotta coat of arms above the niche was ordered by the Mercanzia from Luca della Robbia in 1463, who then had a good chance of winning a commission to make a large-scale statue for the niche. In the end, however, for unknown reasons, his younger contemporary, Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), was entrusted with the task. The latter began working on the statue in 1467. It is his work that is visible in the wall niche on the Orsanmichele Church today. (In fact, the original is now inside the church, and a copy has been placed in the exterior niche.) Meanwhile, the small terracotta model in Budapest has preserved Luca della Robbia’s ideas for posterity. On the intimate statuette, the shaping of the figure of Saint Thomas exhibits affinities with other sculptural works produced in this period, including the angels visible on the bronze door (1445–1469) of the sacristy of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence. The Florentine sculptors often made small preliminary statues in the event of major orders. These statuettes were elaborated in detail and then painted, giving the customer a full impression of the statue before a final decision was made. The Budapest terracotta was such a preliminary work, elaborated in detail and painted. Traces of the paint are still visible today, with remnants of green on the base, of red and blue on Saint Thomas’s clothing, and of blue and green on Christ’s clothing. Given the manner of the painting, it is even possible that – unlike the statue of Christ and Saint Thomas by Verrocchio – Luca della Robbia’s design for the niche of the Orsanmichele Church was not for a bronze statue. Miriam Szőcs

The statue has come down to us in a fragmentary state: Christ’s head and right hand are missing. The head was at one time replaced by a nineteenth-century addition, which was later removed. The backsides of the figures are hollowed out. The statue bears traces of polychromy, green on the base, blue and green on Christ’s robe, red and blue on Saint Thomas’s. The painted Renaissance niche in which the piece had been placed when the Museum of Fine Arts acquired it could not have been its original setting, as it is inscribed ([SAN]CTA MARIA ORA PRO N[OBIS]).

Balogh, Jolán, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der bildenden Künste in Budapest, IV – XVIII. Jahrhundert: 1. Textband Bd. 1, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1975, p. 61-62., no. 54.