Giovanni Francesco Susini

A trip to Rome in 1624-26 gave him first-hand experience of classical antique, 16th century, and the emerging Baroque statuary, latter exemplified by Bernini's youthful Apollo and Daphne, but his own Mannerist style was already matured.

As a sculptor, Susini is known for some public commissions, such as the Fontana del Carciofo ("Artichoke Fountain", 1641), that stands centered with the piano nobile windows of the Palazzo Pitti's garden façade.

The model for this final ensemble, according to the chronicler of artists Filippo Baldinucci, had been completed and approved in 1639; but like many productions for the Medici Grand Dukes, the fountain was a team project with a complicated history.

XXXVIIII,[7] both of which André Le Nôtre gave to his patron Louis XIV in 1693, together with a Gaul Committing Suicide that is inspired by a well-known a Hellenistic marble (all now at the Louvre).The bronze David with the Head of Goliath in the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, is signed FRAN.SVSINI F.. Susini continued to operate the family bronze foundry.

According to Baldinucci, Giovanni and Antonio Susini continued to use Giambologna's models after the elder master's death to cast finely finished bronze sculptures for discerning patrons.

Like Giambologna, Susini's own designs characteristically employ two or three figures in complicated, balanced relationships meant to be appreciated from multiple viewpoints, as represented by the Abduction of Helen (Dresden and Getty Museum), two versions of Venus and Love (Louvre), David with the Head of Goliath (Liechtenstein collection, Vaduz) an analogue of the Ludovisi Mars in Rome, or Venus and Adonis[8] provide characteristic examples of Susini's finely cast and finished table sculptures, meant to be appreciated at close range and admired from all sides.