Temperance

Cardinal Neri Corsini, the nephew of Pope Clement XII (Lorenzo Corsini), commissioned Filippo della Valle and nine other sculptors to decorate the Corsini Chapel in the San Giovanni in Laterano. The allegorical figure of Temperance was executed in 1732 for the chapel.

The Temperance casts more than one glance back to a much admired statue of the early seventeenth century, Duquesnoy’s St Susanna, but it is worth looking at the ways in which Della Valle departs from his model since they indicate a change in taste. A striking sinuosity dictates every aspect of the figure from her coiffure and spiraling pose to the syncopated folds of drapery and magnificent ewer at her feet.