Renaissance sculpture in Florence was forever changed around 1440 when Luca della Robbia created a secret formula for making glazed terracotta reliefs and statuary. Luca and his heirs, Andrea and Giovanni, daringly perfected these techniques.
Over the next century, the family workshop transformed local clay and colored glazes into peerless sculptures that gleamed with light. Praised during the Renaissance as “almost eternal,” today Della Robbia sculptures are often as vibrantly luminous as when they emerged from the kiln five hundred years ago.
