WORKSHOP OF BERTEL THORVALDSEN (1770-1844) ITALIAN, ROME, CIRCA 1820-1840 | NIGHT AND DAY

Alexander Charles Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 9th Marquess of Londonderry (1937-2012), by repute;

Nicolette Powell, née Harrison (married above 1958, divorced 1971);

By descent 

Thorvaldsen created his models for the iconic reliefs of Night and Day after a sleepless night in the summer of 1815 in Rome. Inspired by insomnia, the sculptor conceived the personification of Night in the form of a winged woman in drowsy flight, her head tipped forwards in sleep and garlanded with poppies symbolizing opium-induced torpor. Night gently cradles two putti in her arms, who each fall lazily against her breast, an owll, the symbol of night,flies toward the viewer. Day takes the form of a young woman, who, awake, scatters roses before her and turns to look back, where a putto upholds a torch symbolizing the dawn. Both figures are clad in clinging, classically-styled drapery and float effortlessly with an ethereal quality, their delicately carved wings supporting them. In his Day, Thorvaldsen succeeded in merging Baroque traditions with contemporary Neoclassical advancements. The pose of the woman, with projecting arms and turned head, directly relates to Guido Reni's figure of Aurora from his eponymous fresco in the Casino dell'Aurora next to Palazzo Pallavicini-Ropigliosi, Rome (1614). There is also a parallel with Reni's Fortune being restrained by Love (1623).

Both Night and Day show a considerable debt to Guy Head's remarkable paintings of idealized females in flight with billowing diaphanous drapes: for example the Iris Carrying the Water of the River Styx to Olympus for the Gods to Swear By (1793, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, inv. no. DSC08946) and Echo Flying from Narcissus (1795-1798, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, inv. no. 78.70).

The original plaster models for these compositions are in the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen (inv. nos. A369 and A370). The prime marble versions of the Night and Day were commissioned in 1816-1817 by Richard Bingham, 2nd Earl of Lucan (1764-1839) (now at Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California, see Grandesso, op. cit., p. 274, no. 155.1; and di Majo et al., op. cit., pp. 163-166, nos. 31 and 32). Also in 1817, two more versions were commissioned by the future Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) and François Gabriel de Bray (1765-1832). In 1822, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, (1790-1858), acquired a pair which are still at Chatsworth in the Sculpture Gallery. The pair of reliefs became extremely fashionable to collectors which encourage the studio to produce numerous versions in a multiple sizes.

Due to his success, Thorvaldsen operated a large workshop in Rome and, certainly by the 1820s, he had handed over much of the responsibility for marble carving to his skilled assistants, many of whom were respected sculptors in their own right, including Pietro Tenerani (1789-1869) and Luigi Bienaimé (1795-1878).

Although there are variants of his designs, the present, beautifully preserved reliefs are nearly identical to the artist's original conception. 

RELATED LITERATURE

Elena di Majo, Bjarne Jørnaes, Stefano Susinno, Bertel Thorvaldsen 1770-1844 scultore danese a Roma, exh. cat. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, 1989, pp. 163-167, nos. 31 and 32;

Künstlerleben in Rom - Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 - 1844), exh. cat., Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, and Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, 1992, pp. 80-81, 388-389, no. 2.25;

Bjarne Jørnæs (2003). Thorvaldsen [Thorwaldsen], Bertel. Grove Art Online. Retrieved 25 May. 2019, from http:////www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000084718.;

Stefano Grandesso (ed.), Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), Milan, 2015, pp. 108, 134-135, 274-275, nos. 155