Lot 15: SCIPIONE TADOLINI

SCIPIONE TADOLINI ITALIAN 1822 - 1892 EVE signed: S. TADOLINI. ROMA. 1884 white marble on white veined marble revolving column figure: 78.5cm., 30 7/8in. column: 101cm., 39¾in.

Meridan Hall Estate, Warwickshire, sold 1947

The Tadolini family occupies a fascinating position in the history of Roman sculpture. Four generations of the family of stone carvers lived and worked in the same studio for some 150 years. The building still exists today, on the corner of the Via del Babuino over looked by the Greek Church of S. Anastasia; it is now the Canova-Tadolini Museum. The head of the family, Adamo Tadolini, was an assistant in Antonio Canova's studio and was responsible for producing the working models for many of Canova's most important works. Adamo came to be recognised as Canova's most skilled studio assistant and Canova himself helped him establish his own studio at the Via del Babuino.

Scipione Tadolini, Adamo's eldest son, was trained in his father's studio. Moving away from a strict classicism, Scipione imbues classical subject matter with the Romantic spirit.

The Eve, conceived in the late 1860's at a time when Scipione was approaching the height of career, ranks, together with the Schiava Greca, as being one of the sculptor's most celebrated and successful models. Scipione presents Eve after the fall, her hand raised to her cheek, as if in contemplation of her sin, and her nudity partly obscured by leaves. Eve is a re-imagining of the classical nude, evoking the Hellenistic model of the Crouching Venus, though lending to it a Biblical subject and an air of romanticism. Scipione's debt to the classicism of his father and to Canova is evident in the sensual modelling of Eve's form. The plaster model of Tadolini's Eve is housed in the Palazzo Braschi, Rome, whilst a full sized marble version of the Eve can be found in the collections of the Glasgow Museums.

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Panzetta, Nuovo dizionario degli scultori Italiani dell'ottocento e del primo novecento da Antonio Canova ad Arturo Martini, Turin, 2003, pp. 900-901