Attributed to Raffaelle Monti (1818-1881) | Italian, Milan, circa 1840 | Bust of a Vestal Virgin

Please note that this lot will be sent to our Greenford Park warehouse following the sale.

Raffaelle Monti was famed for his ability to create mesmerisingly life-like sculptures of veiled women. His masterpiece is the Veiled Vestal Virgin which acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire on a visit to Monti's studio in Milan on 12 October 1864 and is today still in the Devonshire collection at Chatsworth House. The present bust essentially follows the same model and, with its herm truncation, is similar to Monti's Dama velata bust, 1845, at Racconigi, Castello (inv. no. 6314).

Monti was trained by his father Gaetano Monti of Ravenna and became a prominent member of the Scuola Lombarda which developed a more romantic school of sculpture in a break with Neoclassicism. Monti was forced into exile in England in 1848 following his involvement in the Risorgimento. He exhibited at the Great Exhibition to acclaim and developed a highly successful career for himself in England. Monti's The Sleep of Sorrow and the Dream of Joy, 1861, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. A.3-1964).

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Radcliffe, Monti's Allegory of the Risorgimento, London, 1965; O. Cucciniello and P. Zatti, Canova. I volti ideali, exh. cat., Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan, 2019, pp. 169-170, no. 3.9