The contribution offers a preliminary view of a research project conducted in the last years and focused on a historical plaster cast collection at Urbino. The origin of the collection dates since the 1860s’, when the plaster casts, mostly derived from Roman (and less Greek) sculptures, began to be acquired for didactic purposes by the Marche Institute of Fine Arts, founded at Urbino in that time. After some decades of intensive activities for acquiring them, between the two world wars and mostly after the Second one the didactic practices involving the casts were progressively marginalized and the materials suffered damages and dispersions until to dismantle the collection. Archival documents, few photos and notices published in the past, some old paper labels preserved on the pieces permit not only to reconstruct the general history of the collection, its numerical consistence in the flourishing period of the origins (few less than one hundred and fifty casts), the subject of each piece acquired as model, but also to define the times and dynamics of the acquisitions and dispersions until the creation of the University Plaster Cast Museum with the few pieces survived, as well as to regain the cultural meanings of such materials during the time. They are the main – but not all - aspects regarding the ‘found’ of this ‘lost’ collection.
Dall’Istituto di Belle Arti delle Marche a Palazzo Albani: formazione, dispersione e ricostruzione di una collezione ottocentesca di calchi in gesso a Urbino
Santucci, Anna
2018
Abstract
The contribution offers a preliminary view of a research project conducted in the last years and focused on a historical plaster cast collection at Urbino. The origin of the collection dates since the 1860s’, when the plaster casts, mostly derived from Roman (and less Greek) sculptures, began to be acquired for didactic purposes by the Marche Institute of Fine Arts, founded at Urbino in that time. After some decades of intensive activities for acquiring them, between the two world wars and mostly after the Second one the didactic practices involving the casts were progressively marginalized and the materials suffered damages and dispersions until to dismantle the collection. Archival documents, few photos and notices published in the past, some old paper labels preserved on the pieces permit not only to reconstruct the general history of the collection, its numerical consistence in the flourishing period of the origins (few less than one hundred and fifty casts), the subject of each piece acquired as model, but also to define the times and dynamics of the acquisitions and dispersions until the creation of the University Plaster Cast Museum with the few pieces survived, as well as to regain the cultural meanings of such materials during the time. They are the main – but not all - aspects regarding the ‘found’ of this ‘lost’ collection.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
