From center to periphery : international collaboration in mid-nineteenth century Rome and the artistic milieu for a silver commission for Malta

Abstract

This article focuses on a set of four mid-nineteenth-century silver altar statues representing the Evangelists belonging to the Parish Church of St. Philip of Agira in Żebbuġ, on the island of Malta. Commissioned from the Roman silversmith Vincenzo Belli the Younger, the figures closely resemble cartoons by the German painter Friedrich Overbeck for a series of frescoes in the chapel of the Torlonia villa in Castel Gandolfo, executed by Alexander-Maximilian Seitz. Overbeck’s cartoons, Seitz’s frescoes, or prints reproducing them by Joseph Von Keller and his brother Franz, were translated into three-dimensional modelli by Pietro Galli, a student of the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, for Belli’s use. The author discusses the remarkable history and international context of the commission and analyzes how a small-town Maltese church could tap into the same network of artists in Rome that was patronized by well-known families such as the Torlonia and even the Pope himself.