BARTOLINI, Lorenzo

The sitter, portrayed at the age of 28, was the mother of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli, the art collector, founder of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli. The bust is signed and dated on the base: “Bartolini faceva 1828.”

This sculpture was commissioned for a niche in the Medici villa of Poggio Imperiale in 1817, but was only completed in 1835 and placed in Palazzo Pitti.

This marble represents Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy (1777-1820), Princesse Fran�aise, Princess of Lucca and Piombino, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Countess of Compignano. She was younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. She became Napoleon’s only sister to possess political power. In 1797 she married Felice Pasquale Baciocchi (who later adopted the surname Levoy).

The princess was highly interested in the arts and commissioned a variety of marble portraits of the Bonapartes. Since Carrara was the main supplier of the finest white marble in Europe, and Elisa had both financial and artistic interests as ruler of Tuscany, she established an Acad�mie des Beaux-Arts there to host the greatest sculptors and thus make Carrara an exporter of marble statues. She also recommended that Napoleon send his favourite sculptor, Lorenzo Bartolini, to direct the Acad�mie. In 1809, she commissioned Bartolini to create busts of her immediate family. After seeing his first portrait, Elisa ordered twelve lifesize busts of her own image, all of which were made by the sculptor or his workshop under his direct supervision. With her headdress emblazoned with imperial symbols of bees, stars and palms, this bust, of which the present portrait is a version, became the official image of the new Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

The Italian sculptor Bartolini was brought to Carrara by Elisa, the sister of Napoleon, to execute there the first of those statues of women and children for which he was to be so much appreciated. The double portrait of mother and daughter revealed the qualities which brought him success, a naturalism in rendering figures allied to classicising idealism (mainly ornamental: coiffures, clothing).

The monument was commissioned by Nikolai Nikitich Demidov’s (1773-1828) sons, Paul and Anatoly, to honour their father, the Russian statesman, diplomat, and later �migr� to Florence. Bartolini worked on the monument from 1830 until his death in 1850. After his death, his pupil Pasquale Romanelli continued the monument till it was inaugurated in 1870. Initially the monument was planned for the Demidov’s Villa San Donato, but Paul gifted it to the commune. Florence seeking to update itself as the capital of Italy, was expanding its public parks. The architect Giuseppe Poggi utilized the monument for this park that he had landscaped just south of the Palazzo Serristori where Demidov had once resided.

The main statuary group shows Nikolai embracing his son, while Gratitude lies by their side. At the four corners are allegorical groups depicting: Mercy; Siberia with the god Pluto; the Muse of Festivals; and the Truth as it revealed to Art. Below the statues a bas-relief depicts the death of Demidov. At the rear is the coat of arms of the family. Giuseppe Martelli designed the roof, which protects the statue.

In 1837 Bartolini created a small marble model of the Demidov monument (Museo Civico, Prato), and this was later replicated on a larger scale (Palazzo Pitti, Florence); however, the still incomplete statuary was in the artist’s studio at his death, and the monument was not erected until 1871.

This unusual marble group was commissioned from the artist by one of the great patrons of his day, Prince Anatole Demidov. Heir to an immensely wealthy Russian family, Demidov filled his magnificent palace outside Florence, the Villa San Donato, with contemporary as well as older art.

Bartolini’s decision to show figures seated or lying on a table-like platform was unusual in the 1840s, however, he was not alone in using this format, Cl�singer presented his Woman Bitten by a Snake similarly.

The group consists of three children whose heads rest at different levels: one child lies directly on the table, the head of the second is propped upon the back of the first, the third child sits upright, leaning on an elbow. Their forms pile into a loose pyramid, obscuring one another so that the whole group can be understood only by walking around it.

The group has an allegorical meaning, the figures can be identified as Bacchus sleeping in the arms of Divine Love, while Unhappy Virtue (or Correct Behaviour) lies at the bottom of the pile.

Bartolini was proud of his Tuscan heritage, and he expressed a great admiration for the sculptors of the early Florentine Renaissance.

Bartolini would often attempt symbolic religious themes. The most notable of these is Trust in God, which the artist intended as a personification of faith. The nudity of the adolescent figure was meant to represent the human soul placing its trust in the Lord, but much of the sculpture’s appeal doubtless stems from its undertone of eroticism.

The statue was commissioned from Bartolini by Rosa Trivulzio Poldi Pezzoli. It was an immediate success, highly praised by critics.