Studies in Italian Sculpture

Dr. Avery has worked on Italian sculpture since he joined the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1966. His study continued during his career as Director of Christie’s sculpture department (1979-1990) and since then as an independent consultant and historian. He has published extensively in this field, including his survey, Florentine Renaissance Sculpture (1970); Giambologna: the complete sculpture (1987); Donatello: an Introduction (1994); and Bernini, Genius of Baroque Rome (1997). A number of articles on Italian sculpture have been included in two successive volumes entitled Studies in European Sculpture (1981 and 1987). The present volume comprises further articles written over the decade since 1986, some on specific discoveries and others consisting of broader surveys of individual sculptors’ activity or under-studied classes of Renaisance sculpture: bronze artefacts, such as seals and locks; and garden sculpture. Several are unpublished texts of lectures, or radical expansions of briefly published pieces.