Florence, Academy Gallery acquires important sketch by Luigi Pampaloni

The Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence enriches its collections with a valuable terracotta statuette by Luigi Pampaloni (Florence, 1791 - 1847): it is the preparatory sketch for Venus at the Bath, which will be exhibited in the Gipsoteca - alongside the other plaster models by the artist and his famous master, Lorenzo Bartolini.

Pampaloni presented Venus at the Bath at the annual Exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1838. The work’s spontaneity, engaging and far from rigid neoclassical conventions, is the result of the artist’s meditations on Bartolini’s teachings and on “natural beauty” as an imitation of reality. These characteristics are accentuated in the 38-centimeter terracotta sketch exhibited at the last Florence Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato and recently acquired by the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.

Venus at the Bath depicts the goddess about to plunge into the water, when the large cloth covering her falls off - provoking the instinctive gesture of covering her breast with one hand. The figure reclines demurely in a spontaneous and very natural movement, highlighted by the torsion of the torso and the sculptor’s high skill in shaping the clay, creating delicate but effective chiaroscuro effects that enhance the softness of the belly and the fullness of the young breasts. The freshness of the modeling, typical of the sketch and clay work, is toned down in the plaster version of the work, which differs from the artist’s first idea in some details. In the terracotta, for example, Venus’s gaze shows an awkwardness that seems to be lost in the later redaction - where the tilted face hints at a vaguely mischievous and seductive smile. In the plaster model, moreover, the hairstyle is more studied than in the sketch, which portrays the goddess with extreme naturalness and perfect spontaneity.

Who was Luigi Pampaloni

Luigi Pampaloni was born in Florence in 1791, the son of a modest merchant in the Tuscan capital. In 1806 he approached art by taking a painting course at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, but his artistic maturation was mainly due to his sculptural skills-honed through the influence of Lorenzo Bartolini, his teacher at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, where Pampaloni moved in 1810.

Pampaloni’s extraordinary ductility is documented by his ability to alternate between a solemn and composed register and a more suave and delicate style. These latter elements are evident in Venus at the Bath, a life-size marble work commissioned from the sculptor in 1836 by American collector Meredith Calhoun.

Statements

“With the acquisition of Venus at the Bath, a preparatory sketch for Luigi Pampaloni’s marble sculpture, the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze reaffirms its dual mission: on the one hand, custodian of an extraordinary heritage, and on the other, a place of research, enhancement and dissemination,” says Massimo Osanna, avocating director of the Florentine museum as well as Director General of Museums. “This precious terracotta offers the public a unique glimpse into the artist’s creative process. Its placement in the Gipsoteca further enriches the museum’s important collection of 19th-century sculpture, which has already been enhanced by the recent refurbishment of this space. The arrival of Venus at the Bath at the Accademia Gallery highlights the museum’s role as a place of study and knowledge, offering a new perspective for understanding and appreciating the creative processes underlying great Italian art.”

“The acquisition of Luigi Pampaloni’s sketch will enhance the understanding of an artist closely associated with the Florentine museum,” pointed out Giulia Coco, curator of the Gipsoteca at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. “The Gipsoteca hosts, in fact, a nucleus of works by the sculptor purchased by the Italian state in the late 1800s, after his death, and displayed in dialogue and comparison with Bartolini’s models. The presence of Venus at the Bath, a subject that does not appear among Pampaloni’s plaster casts already in the museum, further strengthens this link. Not only that. The sketch, which constitutes the creative phase preceding the one figured in plaster and then in marble, that is, the very first idea of the artist, and as such intended for the atelier, recalls the artistic making that animates the Gipsoteca, an ideal reconstruction of the artist’s studio, and more generally the vocation of the Galleria dell’Accademia, a teaching museum of reference for the academic institution.”

Florence, Academy Gallery acquires important sketch by Luigi Pampaloni

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