DOI article:
Lewis, Douglas: A series of historicizing busts of the nineteenth century
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.23901#0169
A SERIES OF HISTORICIZING BUSTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(fig. 16) shows shallow grooves where former
signature beginning „Lazz..." has been
removed from underside of proper left arm
truncation (though inscription was clearly
visible in mid-20rh-century photos, such as
fig. 15); it presumably stood for one of the
many members of the Lazzarini (later
Lazzerini) studios in Carrara, active from at
least the Napoleonic period through the mid-
dle of the 20th century22. That name is partic-
ularly notable in constituting the unique
inscription, of any sort or character, to have
been found on any of the examples of any of
these bust types; and the careful removal even
of it (evidently by a mid-20,h-century dealer)
indicates that it was preferred that these
sculptures should remain anonymous23.
PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS
OF THESE BUSTS
1. Number of Examples
The first and most salient reason for suspi-
cion about these busts is their number:
more than twenty known examples, of only
five design types, represents a level of replica-
tion that is unknown among authentic Late-
Baroque marble busts. Remarkably few legit-
imate Baroque marble busts, in fact, are
known in more than one unique specimen;
among those rare cases in which contempo-
raneous replication did occur (as for example
with Giovanni Battista Foggini's busts [c.
1677/c. 1685] of Ferdinando II de' Medici
and Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duke and
Grand Duchess of Tuscany)24, the process
may readily be explained as a natural wish to
promulgate images of the progenitors of large
princely families. No such reason exists
(except, of course, a modern commercial
one) by which to explain the quite unnatural
number of busts in this series (to say nothing
of the fact that they are now found, in exten-
sive unified sets, in places as implausibly
divergent as a Roman princely palace (for
which they were frankly and relatively recent-
ly purchased as anonymous furnishings) or
a Polish royal villa (where a presumption
about their origin should probably be the
same).
2. Date of Appearance
In the second place, none of the twenty-one
or more specimens of these interrelated
designs has a provable history before 1912
(and even that only for no. I. 6). The two
„matched sets" of Types I-IV (whose
sequence en bloc seems strongly to imply
their chronological closeness to a common
date and locus of production, from which
„wholesale lots" could conveniently be sold
together in large groups) were purchased in
the first case just before 1914 by the Doria-
Pamphili family (figs. 5-8), or in the second
case appeared at some unknown date before
1944 at the Poniatowski/Tyszkiewicz villa of
Jablonna, near Warsaw (figs. 1-4). Both
those Polish noble families, as it happens, are
well known for their connections with the
22 The principal 19,h-century sculptors of the Lazzerini family of Carrara were: Giuseppe Ferdinando (2 September
1831- 3 December 1895), his son Alessandro (1860-1942), and their cousin Pietro (23 August 1837-June 1917).
All three were active in the Carrara and/or Florentine Academies, and Pietro specialized in bust portraits; Pietro
and Alessandro both worked also in Paris. THIEME-BECKER, Kunstler Lexikon, vol. 22, 1928, p. 493-494; E.
BENfiZIT, Dictionnaire, rev. ed. by J. Busse, vol. 8, 1999, p. 367; R. CAROZZI et alia, Scultura a Carrara:
Ottocento, Bergamo 1993, esp. 256, 268, and 310 (superseding the two previous references).
23 J. POPE-HENNESSY, The Forging of Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Apollo 99, 1974, p. 146, reprinted in: The
Study and Criticism of Italian Sculpture, Princeton 1980, p. 223-270, noted that 19,h-century dealers often mar-
keted sculptures with attributions quite different, and much earlier, than the (consciously suppressed) names of
their actual makers (see esp. p. 250).
24 K. LANKHEIT, Florentinische Barockplastik, Munich 1962, p. 75-77, figs. 171-172; K. LANGEDIJK, The
Portraits of the Medici, 15'h-18h Centuries, Florence 1983, vol. 2, p. 802-804, no. and fig. 38.73, and copies a-
e (Ferdinando); p. 1502-1504, no. and fig. 110.54, and copies a-b (Vittoria); G. Pratesi ed., Repertorio della scul-
tura fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento, Turin 1993, vol. 2, pis. 161 (Vittoria) and 160 (copy).
165
(fig. 16) shows shallow grooves where former
signature beginning „Lazz..." has been
removed from underside of proper left arm
truncation (though inscription was clearly
visible in mid-20rh-century photos, such as
fig. 15); it presumably stood for one of the
many members of the Lazzarini (later
Lazzerini) studios in Carrara, active from at
least the Napoleonic period through the mid-
dle of the 20th century22. That name is partic-
ularly notable in constituting the unique
inscription, of any sort or character, to have
been found on any of the examples of any of
these bust types; and the careful removal even
of it (evidently by a mid-20,h-century dealer)
indicates that it was preferred that these
sculptures should remain anonymous23.
PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS
OF THESE BUSTS
1. Number of Examples
The first and most salient reason for suspi-
cion about these busts is their number:
more than twenty known examples, of only
five design types, represents a level of replica-
tion that is unknown among authentic Late-
Baroque marble busts. Remarkably few legit-
imate Baroque marble busts, in fact, are
known in more than one unique specimen;
among those rare cases in which contempo-
raneous replication did occur (as for example
with Giovanni Battista Foggini's busts [c.
1677/c. 1685] of Ferdinando II de' Medici
and Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duke and
Grand Duchess of Tuscany)24, the process
may readily be explained as a natural wish to
promulgate images of the progenitors of large
princely families. No such reason exists
(except, of course, a modern commercial
one) by which to explain the quite unnatural
number of busts in this series (to say nothing
of the fact that they are now found, in exten-
sive unified sets, in places as implausibly
divergent as a Roman princely palace (for
which they were frankly and relatively recent-
ly purchased as anonymous furnishings) or
a Polish royal villa (where a presumption
about their origin should probably be the
same).
2. Date of Appearance
In the second place, none of the twenty-one
or more specimens of these interrelated
designs has a provable history before 1912
(and even that only for no. I. 6). The two
„matched sets" of Types I-IV (whose
sequence en bloc seems strongly to imply
their chronological closeness to a common
date and locus of production, from which
„wholesale lots" could conveniently be sold
together in large groups) were purchased in
the first case just before 1914 by the Doria-
Pamphili family (figs. 5-8), or in the second
case appeared at some unknown date before
1944 at the Poniatowski/Tyszkiewicz villa of
Jablonna, near Warsaw (figs. 1-4). Both
those Polish noble families, as it happens, are
well known for their connections with the
22 The principal 19,h-century sculptors of the Lazzerini family of Carrara were: Giuseppe Ferdinando (2 September
1831- 3 December 1895), his son Alessandro (1860-1942), and their cousin Pietro (23 August 1837-June 1917).
All three were active in the Carrara and/or Florentine Academies, and Pietro specialized in bust portraits; Pietro
and Alessandro both worked also in Paris. THIEME-BECKER, Kunstler Lexikon, vol. 22, 1928, p. 493-494; E.
BENfiZIT, Dictionnaire, rev. ed. by J. Busse, vol. 8, 1999, p. 367; R. CAROZZI et alia, Scultura a Carrara:
Ottocento, Bergamo 1993, esp. 256, 268, and 310 (superseding the two previous references).
23 J. POPE-HENNESSY, The Forging of Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Apollo 99, 1974, p. 146, reprinted in: The
Study and Criticism of Italian Sculpture, Princeton 1980, p. 223-270, noted that 19,h-century dealers often mar-
keted sculptures with attributions quite different, and much earlier, than the (consciously suppressed) names of
their actual makers (see esp. p. 250).
24 K. LANKHEIT, Florentinische Barockplastik, Munich 1962, p. 75-77, figs. 171-172; K. LANGEDIJK, The
Portraits of the Medici, 15'h-18h Centuries, Florence 1983, vol. 2, p. 802-804, no. and fig. 38.73, and copies a-
e (Ferdinando); p. 1502-1504, no. and fig. 110.54, and copies a-b (Vittoria); G. Pratesi ed., Repertorio della scul-
tura fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento, Turin 1993, vol. 2, pis. 161 (Vittoria) and 160 (copy).
165