Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia: With Some Notice of Tabachetti's Remaining Work at the Sanctuary of CreaButler, Samuel
Religion
Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia: With Some Notice of Tabachetti's Remaining Work at the Sanctuary of Crea
Butler, Samuel
Art -- Italy -- Varallo-Sesia; Sacro Monte di Varallo (Sanctuary); Tabaguet, Jean Baptiste, 1568 -1615
Last January I paid a second visit to Crea; and finding a scaffolding up,
was able to get on a level with the circle of full-length figures. They
were still unpainted, the terra-cotta figures showing as terra-cotta and
the plaster of Paris white. When they are all repainted the visitor will
find it less easy to say which are new figures and which old. I will
therefore say that of the lower circle of twenty full-length figures the
only two entirely new figures are the sixth to the left of the door on
entering, which represents a man holding an open book by his left hand
and resting it on his thigh, and the sixth figure to the right of the
door on entering. There are several unimportant restorations of details
of dress, feet, and clouds; the rest of the work in this circle is all by
Tabachetti.
In the circle of busts and half-length figures, the first new work to the
left of the door on entering is a figure that holds a lamb, the two
half-length figures that come next in sequence are also new—the second of
these is a nun holding a little temple. The second upper choir of angels
and saints is still in its original [?] colour and seems to have been
little touched, as also the pendant.
The chapel containing the Marriage Feast at Cana has been much restored
and badly repainted. Most of the figures are very poor, but some, and
especially a waiter with his hair parted down the middle, who is offering
a hare (not cut up) to a guest who seems to have had too much already,
are very good indeed. I find it difficult to think that this waiter can
be by any one but Tabachetti. The guitar-player is good, or rather was
good before he was repainted—so is a lady near him, so are some of the
waiters at the other end, and so are the bride and bridegroom; at any
rate they are life-like and effective as seen from outside, but the
chapel has suffered much from restoration.
There is one other chapel at Crea which may be by Tabachetti though I do
not know that it is ascribed to him, I mean the one containing figures of
the founder and his wife, a little below the main piazza. The shepherds
and sheep to the left are probably not by Tabachetti, but the lady is a
well-modelled figure. Both she, however, and her husband have been so
cruelly clogged with new paint that it is hard to form an opinion about
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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