Medardo Rosso

Medardo Rosso The Rascal or Gavroche impressionist sculpture depicting a laughing boy, the half-bust figure of the laughing boy with a cap and face turned to the left, is screwed with a flat, fused with the sculpture, on a circular base in turned and ebonized wood. In good condition, with a dark patina, this Italian figurative sculpture is signed M.Rosso in block letters on the left shoulder. The lost wax casting dates back to the early decades of the 1900s. Medardo Rosso -Turin, June 21, 1858 – Milan, March 31, 1928- was an Italian sculptor, the main exponent of Impressionism in sculpture. Medardo Rosso presented the first version of this work in 1882 in Milan at the Brera Exhibition of Fine Arts with the title After a Fling, and the following year at the International Exhibition in Rome. The title Gavroche, which appeared for the first time in 1886 at the Deuxième Salon Annuel de la Société des Artistes Français, was given by the artist after his move to Paris in 1889, in relation to the Parisian urchin who died fighting on the barricades in 1832, according to the description given by Victor Hugo in "Les Miserables". In 1910 a copy of this subject was presented at the first exhibition of the Impressionists in Florence as Il monello and later named Il monello ridente.