Bust of Bishop Ulpiano Volpi Alessandro Algardi 1600 - 1650

Bust of Bishop Ulpiano Volpi
Alessandro Algardi 1600 - 1650
From the collection of
Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Ulpiano Volpi was a prominent figure in the upper reaches of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the early seventeenth century. Born in Como, archbishop of Chieti and bishop of Novara, he actually spent most of his life in Rome at the papal curia, where he held important offices.
The portrait was almost certainly based on a death mask, i.e. a plaster cast taken from the face of the dead man. This is suggested by the prominent, bony structure of the head, the skin drawn taut over the cheekbones and the long line of the mouth.
The author of this energetic portrait was Alessandro Algardi, a Bolognese who was one of the leading sculptors in the heyday of Baroque in Rome. The bust of Bishop Ulpiano Volpi, a work from Algardi’s full artistic maturity, can be dated to the 1640s. It marks a phase when the Bolognese sculptor worked in an idiom unusually close to that of Bernini, and was long attributed to Bernini himself.
Details
Title: Bust of Bishop Ulpiano Volpi
Date Created: 1600 - 1650
Sculptor: Alessandro Algardi
Physical Dimensions: w60.5 x h57.5 x d35 cm
Type: Bronze
Rights: Fondazione artistica Poldi Pezzoli "Onlus"
External Link: http://www.museopoldipezzoli.it/en/node/1208

Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Milano, Italy

The Poldi Pezzoli Museum is a non-profit organisation founded in 1881 by the collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli. It is one of the most significant house-museum in Europe and shows the taste of one of the finest collector in the XIX century. The house of the nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822-1879) serves as frame for an impressive collection of Renaissance Italian paintings, but also for a unique collection of decorative arts, namely porcelain, glasses, textiles, clocks, jewellery and metalworks. The Museum is a research institute, devoted to conservation, to studies on history of art and history of collecting and to educational studies. The Museum is committed to organise exhibitions in Italy and abroad and to co-ordinate researches and publications. The conservation department regularly publishes books on restoration regarding the different objects of the collections.

Alessandro Algardi
Jul 31, 1598 - Jun 10, 1654

Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/stone/bust-of-bishop-ulpiano-volpi-alessandro-algardi-1600-1650/