Name of Object:

David

Location:

Rome, Latium, Italy

Holding Museum:

Borghese Gallery

 About Borghese Gallery, Rome

Original Owner:

Cardinal Scipione Borghese

Current Owner:

Italian State

Date of Object:

1623–1624

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598, Naples-1680, Rome)

Museum Inventory Number:

LXXVII

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Marble

Dimensions:

h: 170 cm

Provenance:

Borghese Collection

Type of object:

Sculpture

Description:

This is the third group that Gian Lorenzo Bernini undertook for Scipione Borghese, around the same time that he was making Apollo and Daphne.
It shows David, the young hero of the Old Testament (the Book of Kings), prophet of Christ, just before he slings his stone at the giant Philistine Goliath. David's attitude would be incomprehensible if we did not perceive our own space as part of the scene. The enemy Goliath is in the same space as the viewer, with Bernini removing the boundary between the sculpture and the space that surrounds it, a space that also encloses us, participants in the scene. The resultant theatrical effect is one of the recurring themes in Baroque art.
The work reveals the influence of modern and ancient sculptural models as well as contemporary painting styles, but the artist affords the whole a new realism. The face, possibly a self-portrait, is concentrated in a moment of high drama. The tension of the imminent action is visible in every muscle of the face and body, suspended between stasis and motion, as well as in the detail of the foot jutting out over the plinth, giving a strong impression of gripping on to it.
The sculpture was backed on to a wall so that the viewer, when entering the room, saw it from the angle intended by the artist: obliquely from the left. This effect was calculated to enhance the plastic tension of the hero and the pictorial value of the sculpture through development of the action by walking around to the front of the statue.  
The original base was lost when the work was moved around the Villa over the centuries. The plinth has been enlarged using plaster to suit a taste for greater regularity, but was removed in a recent restoration, restoring the Baroque effect rendered by the structure of the foot.

Cardinal Borghese commissioned Bernini to sculpt the David when he was 25 years old. The artist had the intuition to stop the biblical hero just one second before the shot, placing Goliath’s presence in the viewer's space; perhaps a self-portrait of Bernini.

How Object was obtained:

The Borghese Collection was acquired by the Italian State in 1902.

Selected bibliography:

Faldi, I., Galleria Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al secolo XIX, Rome, 1954, n.34, pp. 31–34.
Wittkower, R., Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, London, 1955 (ed. Italiana Milano, 1990, cat. 17, p. 239).
Preimesberger, R., “David”, in Bernini Scultore, La nascita del Barocco in Casa Borghese, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 1998, pp. 204–219.
Minozzi, M., Sorrentino M. A., Chilosi M. G., Rockwell P., “David” in Bernini scultore e la tecnica esecutiva, Rome, 2002, pp. 164–183.

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright image: Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE e Polo Museale della Città di Roma.

Citation of this web page:

Sofia Barchiesi, Maria Assunta  Sorrentino "David" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;it;Mus11;5;en

Prepared by: Sofia BarchiesiSofia Barchiesi

SURNAME: Barchiesi
NAME: Sofia

TITLE: Author and Researcher

CV:
Sofia Barchiesi, a graduate and specialist in Art History and recipient of a scholarship from the School of Mediaeval and Modern Art History at Lumsa University, has been working with the Superintendency for Historical Artistic Heritage and the Museums of Rome since the late 1980s. She was responsible for cataloguing the art of the region and museums of Rome, studying the period of the Counter-Reformation particularly closely. She works with journals and writes essays, alternating her research and teaching work., Maria Assunta SorrentinoMaria Assunta Sorrentino

SURNAME: Sorrentino
NAME: Maria Assunta

AFFILIATION: Borghese Gallery, Rome

TITLE: Conservation Department Co-ordinator

CV:
Maria Assunta Sorrentino, holder a of a Diploma in Painting and Fresco Restoration and a degree in the Science of Cultural Heritage (historical-artistic), has worked at the Borghese Gallery since 1993, where she manages the Conservation Department and is in charge of the technical and organisational co-ordination of temporary exhibitions. She is currently working on the Ten Great Exhibitions project underway at the Borghese Gallery. She has published several papers on conservation and history in relation to the exhibition, with particular reference to artists such as Bernini, Domenichino, Canova and Caravaggio.
Translation by: Laurence Nunny
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: IT1 07