Object Description
This model being after Giambologna’s Mercury, the original, now in the Bargello Museum Florence, was copied in the 19th century by taking plaster moulds by the Chiurazzi Foundry. They were allowed access to Museums to take casts of the great works of the Renaissance and the recently excavated Roman finds at Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The resurgent Chiurazzi Foundry was saved, along with the precious moulds, by an entrepreneurial artistic family with a medical background from Naples.
Architectural Heritage purchased the Chiurazzi Foundry’s first modern full scale cast of David, Mercury and The Daini (a pair of deer from Pompeii).
This model of Mercury, numbered 3/299, has the foundry stamp of first quality. It is probable that no more than ten in total casts of Mercury have ever been made, as the foundry was purchased by an American company and subsequently mothballed.