Vincenzo Gemito

family of Vincenzo Gemito;
by descent to the artist's daughter, Giuseppina Gemito;
private collection, Italy

E. Somaré & A. Schettini, Gemito, Milan, 1944, p. 213;
M. Pagano, Gemito, exh. cat. Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes, Naples, 2009, p. 182

Overall the condition of the silver is good, with some wear and dirt to the surface consistent with age. There are small, probably intentional, scratches to the gilding throughout. There is what appears to be minor craquelure to the gilding, notably to Neptune's chest and abdomen and his back. There is some minor tarnishing in several areas, including the feet. There is some dryness in the crevices of the cloak, waves, and rock work, and minor greening to one of the crevices of the waves. There are a few nicks, including to Neptune's buttocks. There are a few very minor lacunae, including to the edges of the billowing cloak. There are a few remnants of green felt to the underside.
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The two great influences on the art of Vincenzo Gemito were classical sculpture and the street life of his native city, Naples. Gemito’s genius lay in his ability to fuse these influences and create works of a startling originality. The present statuette of a young Neptune is a supreme example of his sculpture.

As a newborn baby Gemito was left on the steps of a Neapolitan foundling hospital. He was adopted by a poor artisan and his early years were very much like those of the street urchins he famously portrayed. He was apprenticed to a painter at the age of nine and quickly developed a precocious artistic talent. By the age of sixteen he was exhibiting at the prestigious Promotice di Napoli and his work was acquired by the city of Naples. Gemito travelled little, but he did visit Paris and exhibited his Neapolitan Fisherboy at the Salon of 1878.

Although Gemito had a formal artistic education – he enrolled at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts at the age of twelve – he was largely self-taught. His primary source of inspiration was the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. He steeped himself in the museum’s pre-eminent collection of classical sculpture and archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum. These revered works were copied, re-worked and re-imagined by the sculptor, who infused them with an impudent vitality drawn from contemporary life.

Gemito was obsessed by the facture of sculpture, paying close attention to the modelling, casting and chasing of his works. Inspired by the Renaissance master Benvenuto Cellini he set up his own foundry on the Via Mergellina. After a meteoric rise and an intense period of artistic activity Gemito had a mental crisis in the late 1880s and was committed to an asylum. He escaped and became a recluse living in a single room for a period of twenty years. During this time he produced not one sculptural work, confining himself solely to drawing. The sculptor emerged from this isolation around 1909 with a new direction. The soft modelling of the early period was replaced by a strong sense of line and detail. He took up the art of silver and goldsmithing and Nettuno Giovinetto was one of the first masterpieces to be completed.

Carlo Siviero described the Nettuno in 1953 as ‘Leaping from the waves, in the frenzy of the sea wind, quivering within the folds of a cloak which stretches out like a wing..’ and called it ‘the ultimate sculptural creation’ of Gemito’s art. The movement captured in the spiralling form certainly seems to defy the limitations of a static art. The modelling is characterised by a certain agitation, which enlivens the figure. The silver and gold work lends the group a magical quality and the finesse and complexity of the detail can only be compared to another masterwork, the silver and gilt Medusa in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The Nettuno recalls the Neapolitan boys of Gemito’s first period, such as the Acquaiolo, but transcends their insolent realism. The artist no longer shocks, but enchants.

This masterpiece, cast and chased by the artist himself, was kept in Vincenzo Gemito’s own collection until his death. It is the primary version of Nettuno Giovinetto and was passed down to the daughter and the granddaughter of the artist. Despite the later date on the underside of base, the group was described as almost finished in a letter from the artist to his daughter Giuseppina in November 1911. Only one other version in gilt silver is recorded, in the collection of Finocchiaro in Genoa. The original wax for the model is in the collection of the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome.

RELATED LITERATURE
P. Fogelman et al., Italian and Spanish Sculpture. Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection, Los Angeles, 2002, pp. 338-343, no. 43; K. McArthur and K. Ganz, Vincenzo Gemito (1852 – 1929). Drawing and Sculpture in Naples & Rome, exh. cat. Kate Ganz Gallery, 2000, p. 44. cat. 19; C. Siviero, Gemito, Naples, 1953, p. 89