Modello

A modello [moˈdɛllo] (plural modelli), from Italian, is a preparatory study or model, usually at a smaller scale, for a work of art or architecture, especially one produced for the approval of the commissioning patron. The term gained currency in art circles in Tuscany in the fourteenth century. Modern definitions in reference works vary somewhat. Alternative and overlapping terms are "oil sketch" (schizzo) and "cartoon" for paintings or stained glass, maquette, plastico or bozzetto for sculpture or architecture, or architectural model.

Though in Gothic figural arts bishops and abbots are often represented carrying small simulacra of buildings they had constructed—"models" in the familiar modern sense—modello is only used of pieces which pre-date the finished work, and were at least in part produced by the main artist involved. The less frequently found term ricordo (Italian for "record" or "memory") means a similar piece produced as a small copy after completion of the work as a record for the workshop. Naturally it is not always easy for art historians to decide whether a particular piece is one or the other, and, especially in the Late Renaissance and Baroque periods, when several versions of a painting were made, the ricordo for the prime version might serve in the atelier as the modello for the subsequent ones. No doubt a modello was often modified after the main work was completed to reflect any changes in the composition during painting, thus making it a ricordo also; this would normally be impossible for art historians to distinguish from a modello altered during its original production.

The Tiepolo at right was catalogued as a modello by Michael Levey, but recent x-ray investigation of the huge finished work in Munich has revealed that in its underpainting it was closer to another, very different and less finished modello, now in the Courtauld Institute, and it has been asserted that the National Gallery picture illustrated is a ricordo. The National Gallery still describe it as "probably a modello", presumably produced after work had already begun.

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