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Lot 44: GIUSEPPE MORETTI

Est: £20,000 GBP - £30,000 GBPSold:
Sotheby'sLondon, United KingdomNovember 25, 2009

Item Overview

Description

A BUST OF A BACCHANTE
signed: G.Moretti

Dimensions

bust with socle: 85cm., 33½in. column: 116cm., 45¾in.

Medium

white marble on a bronze socle with a red and black marble column with gilt metal mounts

Notes



This lively and impressive bust is filled with movement as the bacchante throws her head back and twists a torso clothed in rippling fur. The sculptor revels in the description of textures and details, with fur against skin and grapes falling through soft tresses.

After an early training in Florence and Carrara, Moretti set sail for the United States arriving in New York in 1888. He quickly won an important commission, working on the Vanderbilt "Marble House" in Rhode Island. Moretti completed major works in Pittsburgh, which he called "The Athens of the New World" and in Alabama, where his massive Vulcan, the largest cast-iron statue in the world, still stands. Moretti was a popular, colourful character, and he became something of a celebrity during his lifetime, numbering amongst his friends stars such as Enrico Caruso and gaining an international reputation.

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Panzetta, Nuovo Dizionario degli scultori italiana dell'ottocento e del primo novecento, vol 2, Turin, 2003, vol. II, p.590; J. Willard, 'Giuseppe Moretti' in Alabama Heritage, No. 20, Spring 1991

Auction Details

19th & 20th Century European Sculpture

by
Sotheby's
November 25, 2009, 10:30 AM GMT

34-35 New Bond Street, London, LDN, W1A 2AA, UK