(b Syracuse, 1656; d Paris, 22 Dec 1701). Italian sculptor, active also in France. He was born of a noble family named Zummo (he changed the spelling to Zumbo in Paris) and educated for the church. Zumbo was a wax sculptor and anatomical modeller and, like many late 16th- and 17th-century amateurs who practised the art of wax modelling, was probably self-taught, although he may have learnt something of the technique in Sicily, where wax imagery was popular. Before 1691 he went to Naples and visited Rome and other cities in Italy. He was an enthusiastic collector of Old Master drawings and engravings. In Naples he may have invented a new method of colouring wax for sculpture (see WAX, §II, 1(i)), which attracted sufficient notice for him to be summoned to Florence in 1691 by Cosimo de’ Medici III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who paid him a monthly pension. As a sample of his skill he may have brought with him a scene with wax figures, the Plague (Florence, Mus. Zool. La Specola), which has been shown to depend on paintings of the Neapolitan plague of 1656 by Mattia Preti and Micco Spadaro. Zumbo was in Florence from February 1691 at least until April 1694... (continue reading at galleriaroma.it)
