Lot 137: f - ADÈLE D'AFFRY, DUCHESS CASTIGLIONE-COLONNA, CALLED MARCELLO FRENCH, 1836-1879 A BUST OF MME.

f - ADÈLE D'AFFRY, DUCHESS CASTIGLIONE-COLONNA, CALLED MARCELLO FRENCH, 1836-1879 A BUST OF MME. RODOCANACHI AS MEDJE

signed: Marcello and numbered 3893

bronze, rich dark brown patina

CATALOGUE NOTE

Adèle d'Affry was the daughter of the Swiss Count, Louis d'Affry, and the husband of Carlo Colonna, Duke of Castiglione, whom she met in Italy, having moved to Rome in 1854. When her husband tragically died, only eight months after their marriage in 1856, Adèle launched herself into a career as a sculptor, taking on the pseudonym 'Marcello'. The 72cm. plaster version of Medje is in the Fondation Marcello in Fribourg and the signed marble is in the musée d'Art et d'Histoire in the same city, her birthplace.

RELATED LITERATURE
Romantics to Rodin pp.299-300; H.Bessis, 'Marcello ou la Duchesse Colonna', Bulletine de la societe de l'historie de l'art francais, 1967, pp.153-159; Musée Rodin, Marcello, exh.cat., Paris 1980

24kg., 52.9lb.<br><br>76cm., 30in.