Study For The Blessed Alessandro Sauli (1663-1668 CE)

The figure seems to surge upward from the clay itself, robe twisting, arm lifted, body caught in a moment of spiritual urgency. Even before one knows the subject, the intensity is unmistakable. In this terracotta study for The Blessed Alessandro Sauli, Pierre Puget transforms devotional sculpture into something vividly alive, using movement, weight, and expressive force to make sanctity feel immediate rather than remote.

A Baroque Model in Counter-Reformation Genoa

This bozzetto was made between 1663 and 1668, during Pierre Puget’s years in Genoa, at a time when religious art was expected not only to adorn sacred spaces but to stir belief, emotion, and devotion. The work was created as a preparatory model for a larger marble statue commissioned by the powerful Sauli family for the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano. Its subject, Alessandro Sauli, had been one of Genoa’s most admired churchmen: a Barnabite priest, later bishop, and an important figure in Catholic reform, known for preaching, pastoral care, and efforts to bring the Church closer to ordinary people. In the decades after the Council of Trent, such a figure offered a perfect model of sanctity for a Church eager to present itself as renewed, disciplined, and spiritually compelling.

A Saint in Motion

What makes this study so striking is the way Puget refuses stillness. Alessandro Sauli is not posed as a calm, distant holy man, but as a body in motion, seized by conviction and inner force. The open book in his hand points to learning and reform, yet the sculpture is driven less by doctrine than by energy. His robes sweep outward, his posture twists upward, and the entire form seems to pulse with baroque intensity. Puget understood that religious sculpture in this period had to do more than signify holiness; it had to make it felt.

The Putto and the Drama of the Composition

One of the most revealing details in the history of the commission is the later addition of the putto. In 1668, Puget was paid extra to incorporate this figure into the final marble version, suggesting that the patrons wanted an even richer and more animated composition. In the bozzetto, the putto clutches Sauli’s cloak, creating a vivid contrast between childlike softness and the saint’s commanding presence. More than ornament, the putto intensifies the sense of divine accompaniment and baroque theatricality. It also reflects the taste of Genoese aristocratic patrons, who expected religious works to combine piety with visual splendor and symbolic fullness.

Puget in Genoa

Puget’s time in Genoa was crucial to his development. A French sculptor working in one of the Mediterranean’s great artistic and financial centers, he absorbed the influence of Bernini and of the broader Italian baroque while retaining a fiercely individual style. He was known for ambition and for a temperament that could make relations with patrons difficult, yet the Sauli commission shows the degree of confidence elite Genoese families placed in his talent. This study already reveals why: the work has the restless force, dramatic contour, and psychological immediacy that made Puget one of the most distinctive sculptors of his age.

Terracotta, Scale, and Sculptural Energy

The bozzetto is made of terracotta and stands 69.7 cm high, or 27 7/16 inches. Terracotta was an ideal material for such preparatory models, allowing a sculptor to test movement, mass, and emotional effect with unusual freedom. Here, that freedom is still visible in the textured surface, where Puget’s modeling remains immediate and alive. The folds of the drapery, the saint’s expressive face, the open book, and the small but active putto all show how fully the final composition was being worked out in clay before translation into marble. The modest scale only sharpens the sense of intensity. Though a study, it feels complete in its own right.

From Genoa to Cleveland

The bozzetto likely began in Puget’s Genoese workshop before passing through distinguished later collections, including those of the Marquesses Pallavicini in Genoa, the Baudouin-Gounelle collection in Marseille, and Henri Dobler in Aix-en-Provence. In the 20th century it appeared on the Paris art market and was acquired through the Blumka Gallery in New York by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1964. There it remains a compelling example of Puget’s baroque invention, preserving in clay the first surge of an idea later realized in marble.