Luigi Pampaloni (Firenze, 1791 - 1847)

Luigi Pampaloni (Florence, 1791 - 1847) Girl Marble, cm 37 x 33 x 26 The work under examination, a graceful young girl in white marble lying down with her hands clasped in contemplation, is to be included in the vast artistic corpus of the Florentine sculptor Luigi Pampaloni (Florence, 1791 – 1847), nicknamed the "Anacreon of sculpture" due to the extreme ductility demonstrated in knowing how to alternate a serious and severe register, more appropriate to a monumental style, with a light and gentle one, befitting subjects of lesser commitment. Around 1810, after completing an apprenticeship in Pisa at the workshop of his brother Francesco, a sculptor and expert in alabaster processing, the artist continued his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, characterized at the time by a lively environment supported by the patronage of Elisa Baciocchi: here he attended the sculpture courses held by the famous Lorenzo Bartolini and the drawing lessons of the Frenchman Frédéric Jean-Baptiste Desmarais, participating in competitions in both disciplines in 1811. The artist, still a student of Bartolini, began his career with important decorative commissions in Florence: he worked at the villa of Poggio Imperiale (1817 and 1822) and at Palazzo Pitti (around 1820), creating bas-reliefs and plastic decorations in the neo-fifteenth-century style. In 1826 he achieved notoriety with a funerary sculptural group, depicting a Boy in prayer and a Girl lying down, receiving in the same year the commission for three Naiads destined for the fountain in Piazza Farinata degli Uberti in Empoli. In December 1826, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore entrusted him with the task of decorating the two niches on the facade of the new Palazzo dei Canonici, located along the southern side of the Duomo, with the statues of Arnolfo di Cambio and Filippo Brunelleschi, both already planned to be seated: critics praised the sculptor «for having been able to capture the nature of the two architects», adapting it to the different eras in which they lived. Also in the field of celebratory sculpture, he was entrusted with the execution of the Monument to Pietro Leopoldo in Piazza S. Caterina in Pisa, and from 1836 he had taken part in the decoration of the Uffizi loggia, creating the statue of Leonardo da Vinci. In the period of full maturity, he dedicated himself to themes of religious inspiration and morally edifying subjects, linked to the philanthropic climate of the Restoration in Tuscany. It was precisely in this context that in 1838, Pampaloni received a commission from the Pistoian patron and philanthropist Niccolò Puccini for a statue that should depict a young girl in prayer. Soon, however, the project was enriched and a second figure was added, a praying child (for which the artist reused a model already made in 1826), both then placed on a rocky peak at the top of which was placed a cross. The work took the name Orfani sulla rupe (Orphans on the cliff) who, as Puccini himself wrote in his will "abandoned by the avarice of men on the cliff of misery" received comfort from faith in the Cross, which "supplies the needy with what was denied to them by the world", destining the sculptural group to the chapel of the Oratory of the former Conservatory of Orphans of Pistoia, where it is still preserved today. In July 1840, the single model of the Girl was exhibited at the annual exhibition in the halls of the Academy of Fine Arts, while the entire marble complex was completed and delivered in 1842, exhibited at the first "Festa delle spighe" (Festival of the ears of wheat) held in the park of the Villa Puccini, and then placed in the large hall on the first floor. The artist, in fact, created several versions of the Girl of various sizes and materials, among which those preserved at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence and the terracotta model owned by Puccini himself, now located in the Palazzo di San Gregorio in Pistoia, are noteworthy. Observing the sculpture presented here, the fundamental characteristics of Pampaloni's modeling emerge, praised in his time for «gentleness, truth and expression». Capable of combining the neoclassical tradition of Canova's inspiration with a romantic sensibility and attention to realism, his works demonstrate delicate executive refinement and a profound psychological investigation of the subjects.