Lot 192: VERDI, GIUSEPPE.

FINE BRONZE DEATH MASK OF VERDI

by Luigi Secchi (1853-1921), cast in bronze, height c.33cms (13 ins) (c.1901)

PROVENANCE

From the family of the artist, by descent.

NOTE

unique: We understand that this is the only casting in bronze of Luigi Secchi's death mask of Verdi.

Verdi died in in the Hôtel Milano in Milan on 27 January 1901 at 2:50 am. Luigi Secchi took the image from the composer later the same morning, as reported by Giuseppe Giacosa in the following day's issue of Corriere delle sera. Luigi Secchi had been asked, through the Ricordis, to take the plaster cast of Verdi's head and right hand.

...I signori Ricordi, per incarico della famiglia del Maestro, pregarono l'architetto Luca Beltrami di dare allo scultore Secchi l'incarico di eseguire in gesso la maschera e la mano destra di Verdi...Dopo le 10 lo scultore Luigi Secchi, accompagnato dal formatore Campi, giunsero all'albergo e cominciò l'onorevole operazione, che durò verso le 13. Sino a quell'ora nessuno aveva potuto entrare nella stanza del morto..." (quoted after Guido Gatti, Verdi, (1931), ii, 518)).

Copies of Secchi's plaster cast are in the Milan Conservatory, the Museo teatrale alla Scala and at the Casa Verdi in Busseto, but this appears to be the only version in bronze: see Gatti, Verdi nelle immagini (1941) and W. Weaver, Verdi, A Documentary Study (1977), fig 276. Secchi was also responsible for a large bronze statue of the composer (1913) which stands in front of the Casa Verdi and several important works in Milan.