Navicella Fountain (Fontana della Navicella)

The drawing shows the miniature copy in marble of an Antique ship (transformed into a fountain in 1931), which was commissioned by Pope Leo X, ca. 1518–19, to stand in front of his titular church (as cardinal) of S. Maria in Domnica on Monte Celio in Rome. The sculptor of the Navicella was possibly Andrea Sansovino, who designed the church facade (1512–13). Another version of the drawing records the original inscription on the pedestal: “PAPA. LEON. X.” In the present drawing Wiedewelt amusingly has written his own Latin inscription, which translates as “Wiedewelt the Second, of the Danish Sculptors,” because his father, who had initially trained him, was also a sculptor. The drawing apparently was a gift from Wiedewelt to his friend Adolf Friedrich Harper, Wilson’s pupil, on the occasion of his departure from Rome in 1756.