Tito Angelini’s Bacchante, Rediscovered The Bacchante, a marble sculpture by Tito Angelini, signed and dated 1865, now owned by one of the Neapolitan artist’s descendants, was commissioned by Giovanni Vonwiller, a banker of Swiss descent and well-known art collector in the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as a generous patron of – among others – Domenico Morelli, who was also his art consultant. The statue, which once held a place of honor in the center of one of the salons of the illustrious Vonwiller Gallery in Naples, was a replica of the one Angelini had sculpted in the mid 1840s for the refined and extrav-agant Marquis Filippo Ala Ponzone, the present wereabouts of which is unknown, like the whereabouts of the replica done for King Vittorio Emanuele II, much praised by Vittorio Imbriani, sculpted sometime between 1863 and 1865. The addition of the Bacchante to Angelini’s catalogue enriches critical discourse on the activity of this great sculptor, who was Neoclassical by formation but drawn toward Purism, and also influenced by research being conducted beyond the Alps, especially the innovational work of the Franco-Swiss artist James Pradier.
'Nè vidi mai la più gentil figura di questa ebbra, ancor non più che a mezzo sprigionata dal marmo'. Sulla Baccante ritrovata di Tito Angelini
Di Benedetto, Almerinda
2018
Abstract
Tito Angelini’s Bacchante, Rediscovered The Bacchante, a marble sculpture by Tito Angelini, signed and dated 1865, now owned by one of the Neapolitan artist’s descendants, was commissioned by Giovanni Vonwiller, a banker of Swiss descent and well-known art collector in the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as a generous patron of – among others – Domenico Morelli, who was also his art consultant. The statue, which once held a place of honor in the center of one of the salons of the illustrious Vonwiller Gallery in Naples, was a replica of the one Angelini had sculpted in the mid 1840s for the refined and extrav-agant Marquis Filippo Ala Ponzone, the present wereabouts of which is unknown, like the whereabouts of the replica done for King Vittorio Emanuele II, much praised by Vittorio Imbriani, sculpted sometime between 1863 and 1865. The addition of the Bacchante to Angelini’s catalogue enriches critical discourse on the activity of this great sculptor, who was Neoclassical by formation but drawn toward Purism, and also influenced by research being conducted beyond the Alps, especially the innovational work of the Franco-Swiss artist James Pradier.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
