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Master of the Unruly Children
( fl Florence, early 16th century). Italian sculptor. Conventional name for an anonymous sculptor much influenced by Verrocchio and Benedetto da Maiano, who produced a stylistically coherent group of statuettes in terracotta, the common feature being one or more mischievous children. These were first integrated by Wilhelm von Bode in connection with examples in the Altes Museum in Berlin, while later discussions concentrated on a Charity (see fig.) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Pope-Hennessy, 1964), and a Virgin and Child in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA (Avery, 1981). The terracottas ascribed to the Master of the Unruly Children are composed with complete assurance and convey a sense of movement and physical presence that indicates an accomplished sculptor. He executed a series of variations on the basic theme of a seated woman with children about her. Some examples with three children conform to the standard iconography of the Christian virtue of Charity. Others, with only one boy, apparently represent the Virgin and Child, in some of which he playfully reveals one of his mother’s breasts as she reads. The similar facial features of the women, the disposition of their feet with knees swung to their left, their loose robes and ample cloaks, and the treatment of their drapery folds, especially across their knees and their feet along the bases, relate all of them to the same master. The modelling of the children, with the fleshiness of their cheeks, necks, arms, legs and abdomens, as well as their facial expressions and swirling curls of hair, also relate them to the same hand. In some compositions children appear on their own, quarrelling. All have rocky bases and, where necessary, are hollowed out behind to prevent cracking when being fired in the kiln. They are also often painted naturalistically. Close in style and subject to the statuettes by the Master of the Unruly Children are the glazed terracotta figures of the Christian Virtues, especially the Charity, made for the frieze depicting the Seven Works of Mercy on the external loggia of the Ospedale dell Ceppo in Pistoia. The curious ribbed and pointed halo, like an umbrella blown inside out, with which the Charity in Pistoia is endowed, frequently features in the work of the Master of the Unruly Children. Santi Buglioni is credited with glazing the figures at Pistoia between 1526 and 1528, but it is not known whether he actually modelled them.
Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family
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