This catalogue accompanies an exhibition of the same name, shown from March 21September 6, 1981 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Many of the great names of European sculptureAlgardi, Soldani, Clodion, Pajou, Carpeaux, and Rodinare represented, but Dr. Sackler's motive in assembling his collection of European terracottas extended beyond mere prestige. Rather, he sought to collect objects that reveal as fully as possible the range of techniques and textures allowed by the highly versatile and intensely personal medium of fired clay. The exhibition allowed glimpses of modeling at every stage, from the quick, impulsive sketch, where one can see the pellets of clay not yet smoothed out by the fingers, to the more advanced forms. At the same time that preliminary models were reaching heights of expressivity in the hands of seventeenth, and eighteenth-century sculptors, it happened that the aptitudes of certain geniuses led them to model almost exclusively and to produce small, entirely finished terracottas as cabinet pieces for the delectation of connoisseurs.
Works displayed are from the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan, and the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge. Checklist included. [ This book was originally published in 1981 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]
