« Une teste de cire anatomique »

Abstract

This study traces the life of Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656 ?-1701), the Sicilian wax sculptor and modeller who died in Paris on 22 December 1701, barely a year after his arrival in the French capital. Why did Zumbo travel to Paris, what networks enabled him to be received at court, to obtain a royal privilege, and how has his much-lauded work, discredited and relegated as a “minor art”, influenced sculpture and anatomy? These are the questions this study will delve into, highlighting an aspect of Zumbo’s life, that of an occasional court artist. He first lived in Florence, at Cosimo de’ Medici III’s residence, before his arrival in France, and was admitted to the court of Monseigneur and the Duke of Orleans, protected by the painter Élisabeth Chéron, and praised by Paris’s artists and men of science.

Keywords

• Antoine Benoist
• Élisabeth-Sophie Chéron
• Guillaume Desnoues
• Gaetano Giulio Zumbo
• anatomical head
• French court