Patrick Comerford
During my visits to Lichfield last week and this week, I included a very brief isit to the library and arts centre at the Hub at Saint Mary’s in the former Saint Mary’s Church on the Market Square. There I bave been in search of some Christmas-themed images in the stained glass windows, the reredos and the altar.
Lichfield has long promoted itself as the ‘City of Sculpture’ and one of the most popular and best-loved works of sculpture in Lichfield is ‘The Reading Girl,’ a statue by the Italian sculptor Antonio Rossetti and now in Saint Mary’s.
Many people of my age in Lichfield have fond memories of this statue being in the entrance hall of the original Free Library and Museum in Bird Street. It later moved to the reception area of the library at the Friary. It is now in the chapel in Saint Mary’s Church, home to the Library, the Saint Mary’s performance space and to the local history service.
The marble statue is by the Italian sculptor, Antonio Rossetti, and is officially titled ‘Self-Help: the Reading Girl.’ The statue dates from 1883 and was gifted to the City of Lichfield in the 1940s by the benefactor Colonel Michael Swinfen-Broun (1858-1948) of Swinfen Hall.
Today ‘The Reading Girl’ is part of the Lichfield District Council museum collection. But there was controversy back in 2008 when the council decided to sell another Italian sculpture donated to the city by Swinfen-Broun.
The statue by Donato Barcaglia, known locally as ‘Old Father Time,’ was sold at auction at Sothebys in London for £150,000 in 2008. That statue had been without a permanent home for some time., and was stored in controlled conditions at a cost of £800 per month. Marble experts, fearing that the statue would deteriorate in storage, advised the work needed a new or more suitable home.
‘The Reading Girl’ is a delicately composed sculpture in white marble. It shows a girl sitting braiding her hair while she is lost in a book that rests on her lap. Rossetti records a moment of private captivation as the girl absent-mindedly toys with her hair while she is engrossed in her book.
Antonio Rossetti (1819-1889) was born in Milan on 31 October 1819. He studied first in Milan with Francesco Somaini, and from 1844 in Rome, where he worked until the end of his life.
Rossetti worked in white marble, and was known for his figurative and genre works. Many of his works featured characters inspired by fables or classical mythology. As a virtuoso carver known for carefully pronounced details and delicate female forms, Rossetti created genre and allegorical works under the tutelage of celebrated sculptors Giovanni Battista Lombardi and Francesco Somaini. As an exhibitor at the Exposition Universelle as early as 1867, Rossetti’s oeuvre found an international audience, especially in the US.
He was a hard and meticulous worker who created numerous sculptures in line with contemporary tastes, which he sold to the rich, earning him a considerable fortune. His sensual marble figures and groups were especially popular with foreign visitors.
Rossetti produced several versions of ‘The Reading Girl’. The first version, titled ‘Self Help’, was produced in 1871, presumably commissioned for an American patron of the artist’s studio.
The statue gained immediate popularity, and the Californian politician Milton S Latham commissioned another version of ‘The Reading Girl’ in 1874 for his private residence at Thurlow Lodge, a sprawling estate in Menlo Park. Later it was bought by the widow of Mark Hopkins, founder of the Central Pacific Railroad.
From this original work, Rossetti produced at least two other full-scale copies of ‘The Reading Girl’: one in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1873), and the other in Lichfield (1883).
Antonio Rossetti died in Rome in 1889.
No comments:
Post a Comment