Fountain

The villas and gardens of Rome and Florence vied with their antique prototypes of statuary and fountains, not only in the display of Classical sculpture, but also in new commissions for sculpture along similar lines. By the turn of the seventeenth century, villa fountains had begun to shed much of their architectural structure and were assuming more naturalistic forms. Notable examples of this type were created by Valerio Cioli with his tableaux of country pursuits - a peasant digging, scenes of wine-making and a woman washing a child’s hair (this picture) - all in the Boboli Gardens in Florence.