# Altarpiece [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [ROBBIA, Giovanni della]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Glazed terracotta ## Commentary Giovanni della Robbia, the third-born son of Andrea, inherited the family workshop and was responsible - together with his brother Luca the Younger - for adapting its production to 16th-century taste, influenced by contemporary Florentine painting. His style was eclectic with emphasis on decoration, and his works showed a dialectical relationship between plastic and pictorial effects. In 1511, Giovanni executed an intricate altarpiece for the main altar of the hermitage of San Gerolamo del Sasso Rosso near Arcevia. This altarpiece, now in San Medardo, Arcevia, has an architectural framework with many ornamental motifs. The grandiose character of the work, the two candelabrum-bearing angels at the sides of the upper part of the altar, and the figures St John the Baptist and St Jerome in the niche take their inspiration from Andrea Sansovino. The spacious and resonant structure of the altarpiece recalls the <A onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/s/sansovin/andrea/6sforza.html'\)" HREF="/html/s/sansovin/andrea/6sforza.html">Monument of Ascanio Sforza</A> by Sansovino in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. ## Related artworks - [Annunciation]() - [Bust of a Saint]() - [Bust of a Young Woman]() - [Judith]() - [Lamentation over the Dead Christ]() - [Lavabo]() - [Nativity]() - [St Agatha]() - [St Lucy]() - [St Michael the Archangel]() - [Virgin in Glory]() - [Visitation]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()