This elegant model for a funerary monument shares similarities with designs by the foremost Florentine sculptor of the 19th century: Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850). Bartolini rose to prominence during the reign of Napoleon’s sister Elisa Baciocchi, Grand Duchess of Tuscany between 1809 and 1814. Bartolini directed the Grand Duchess’ Banca Elisiana in Carrara, where he was responsible for the vast output of quality portraits of members of the Imperial family. The sculptor is nonetheless famous for his sublime ‘La fiducia in dio,’ representing a kneeling girl in prayer, of which the prime version is in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan. He was particularly celebrated du♛ring his lifetime for his exceptional portrait busts of British Grand Tourists, of which the most iconic is that of Lord Byron in the Palazzo Pitti (inv. no. Giornale 2703).

The Monument to Nickolai Demidoff (conceived 1837, and erected posthumously in Piazza Demidoff, Florence, 1871) is arguably Bartolini's most famous public monument. However, Bartolini was also responsible for funerary church monuments, the majority of which took the form of reliefs or fictive sarcophagae set into walls. The present model relates to Bartolini's Monument to Angelo Nespoli in SS. Annunziata which was completed by the sculptor in 1841. It shares the same essential composition of a tomb-like structure in the form of an enlarged ancient Roman funerary altar, surmounted by a portrait bust of the deceased. The present design is, however, more elaborate than the Nespoli m🥃onument, since the tomb is flanked by attenꦜdant female allegories/ attendant figures who both chaperone children. The present portrait shares similarities with the bust from Bartolini's 1846-1850 Monument to Vittorio Fossombroni, in which the subject is presented in contemporary dress.

RELATED LITERATURE

Lorenzo Bartolini, exh. cat. Prato, 1978, pp. 288-289, fig. 9; F. Falletti, S. Bietoletti and A. Caputo (eds.), Lorenzo Bartolini. Beauty and truth in marble, ꦰexh. cat. Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence, 2011, pp. 360-361, no. 72

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