The Della Robbia family were active in Florence from the early 15th century and
elsewhere in Italy and France well into the 16th. Family members were
traditionally employed in the textile industry, and their name derives
from rubia tinctorum, a red dye.
Luca della Robbia founded the family sculpture workshop in
Florence and was regarded by contemporaries as a leading artistic
innovator, comparable to Donatello and Masaccio. He is credited with the
invention of the tin-glazed terracotta sculpture for which the family
became well known. His nephew Andrea della Robbia, who inherited the
workshop, tended to use more complex compositions and polychrome glazing
rather than the simple blue-and-white schemes favoured by his uncle.
Several of Andrea's sons worked in the shop. Marco della Robbia,
perhaps the least talented of the sons, became a Dominican monk in 1496
but continued to execute sculpture. Andrea's sons Giovanni della Robbia
and Luca della Robbia the Younger inherited the workshop and were
responsible for adapting its production to 16th-century taste,
influenced by contemporary Florentine painting. Another son, Francesco
della Robbia joined the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence in
1495 but maintained links with the family shop. His work included
plastic groups and terracotta altarpieces, some executed in
collaboration with his brother Marco. In the 1520s Marco and Francesco
spent some time in the Marches, near Macerata, where they realized
numerous glazed terracotta works.
Girolamo della Robbia was the only son of Andrea to continue the
reputation of the family's terracotta works beyond the the mid-16th
century. He spent much of his life in France, working for the royal
court, often in collaboration with Luca the Younger, who joined him
there in 1529.
Good, Better, Best.
Friday, 9 March 2012
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