Exhibition
The work on display until 5 May at the Museum is the first version of the lower part of the model that Lucio Fontana created in 1954 for the Pala dell’Assunta, commissioned by the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo of Milan and intended for the altar of Sant’Agata in the cathedral.
The work entrusted to the Italian-Argentine sculptor was to represent a Virgin of the Assumption of monumental dimensions, at the foot of which a predella depicting the Pietà would be placed.
After the presentation of small sketches, some of which are missing and one today in a private collection, the Veneranda Fabbrica asked Fontana to create a plaster model of the entire altarpiece in full scale.
In the Deposition of Christ, the first sketch of the predella presented by Fontana, the kneeling Virgin supports the semi-reclining body of Christ, from behind with his head completely thrown back. This first version was rejected by the client, probably due to the accentuated expressionistic language not conforming to the approved sketch.
Fontana then created a second version which found the consensus of the commission, and which became the predella of the monumental altarpiece, which has been in the Museo Diocesano since 2000: this is the life-size model which would then have to be translated into Candoglia marble for its definitive placement in the Cathedral.
However, the work was never created in the final marble version and the project remained unfinished. Only after Fontana’s death was a bronze casting carried out in 1972, which is now temporarily placed on the altar of Sant’Agata in the Duomo.
The first plaster model of the Deposition of Christ, preserved at the Marble Works of the Duomo and known only thanks to archival photographic reproductions, was presented for the first time by the Veneranda Fabbrica last January.
Today this exhibition, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Milan and created in collaboration with the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo and with the support of Banca Italiana, offers the extraordinary opportunity for a close comparison between the two subsequent versions of the predella.
