Lot 331: AN ITALIAN WHITE MARBLE FIGURE ENTITLED 'LA TUFFOLINA' (THE DIVING GIRL)

AN ITALIAN WHITE MARBLE FIGURE ENTITLED 'LA TUFFOLINA' (THE DIVING GIRL)
BY ODOARDO TABACCHI, TURIN, LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY
The naturalistic base signed to the side 'O.Tabacchi/Torino'
41½ in. (106 cm.) high

Sold Bonhams, London, 10 July 2007, lot 150.

Odoardo Tabacchi (1831-1905) trained at the Brera Academy in Milan and worked on several successful public monuments. He specialised also in small sensuous statues of girls, such as the present Tuffolina, dating from 1878, in which the spontaneity of action and the natural grace of the youthful body created appealing and popular images. Due to its great celebrity this model was also cast in bronze in different sizes, of which an example is in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.