These refined busts of a man and a woman are inscribed to their undersides with the initials BF, indicating the authorship of Lorenzo Bartolini who, by the 1820s, had become one of the most sought-after portrait sculptors in Europe. The pair almost certainly represents a married couple, as the medallion on the woman’s bust depicts the profile of her male companion. Based on both stylistic grounds and the fashion of the woman’s hair and contemporary dress, the busts are datable to the late phase of Bartolini’s career, around 1840. The female bust, in particular, finds close parallels in the sculptor’s works from this period, notably the 1839 bust of Mathilde Bonaparte de Montford in Madrid (op. cit., p. 105, fig. 12) and Bartolini’s portrait of Caroline Unger Sabatier in the Musée Fabre, Montellier (ibid., no. 47), which is thought to post-date 1841. A striking resemblance between the present bust and the portrait of Mathilde Bonaparte can be observed in their profiles, with delicately carved facial features and analogous hairstyles, both arranged in front of the ear and tied in a braided chignon at the back, exhibiting the finely striated carving characteristic of Bartolini’s work. A similar circular layering of hair is seen in the bust of Caroline Unger, which also compares to the present female portrait in its broad conception of the neck and shoulders, with a prominent ascending line. The male bust, depicting a clean-shaven young man with tightly cropped curls of hair, finds fewer obvious comparisons in Bartolini’s oeuvre but is somewhat analogous to the sculptor’s portrait of Karl August Eugen Napoleon of circa 1835 (op. cit., p. 128, fig. 2), which shows a similar treatment of hair in the beard, a simple arrangement of drapery and, like the present pair of busts, has articulated eyes.
Lorenzo Bartolini came from humble beginnings and emerged to become the most highly esteemed Italian sculptor of the generation after Canova. In 1797 he went to Paris and joined the studio of Jacques-Louis David. Having been commissioned to carve a bust of the Emperor Napoleon for the column in the Place Vêndome, he was sent to Cararra, where he remained as the quasi-official portrait sculptor to the Bonapartes until after the fall of Napoleon. He eventually settled in Florence and enjoyed wide-ranging patronage of an international clientele. It was at this time that he was awarded commissions by the Russian-born count Anatoly Nicolayevich Demidoff (1812-1870), Tsar Alexander I's ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and one of Bartolini’s greatest patrons. Bartolini was certainly influenced by Canova’s works in Italy and France during his career, but he created his own approach to the elegance and purity of Neoclassicism. His portraits of the Bonaparte dynasty induced other aristocratic and wealthy patrons to imagine themselves in similar compositions, which translated into important commissions throughout the latter part of his career.
RELATED LITERATURE
Lorenzo Bartolini: Beauty and Truth in Marble, exh. cat. Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, 2011
