Vincenzo Gemito Figurative Sculptures

This beautifully detailed bronze bust by Vincenzo Gemito (Italian 1852-1929) represents the greco-roman mythological Satyr, a woodland god and follower of Dionysos, known for erotic desires and over indulgence of wine. Yes, our satyr has a mischievous and lustful smile which the artist has captured with great sense of personality. Wearing a wreath of grape leaves and grapes patinated in a greener color we notice the rudimentary horns and the pointed ears. Gracefully placed near the edge of the stepped marble base the satyr's beard overlaps the base with great sculptural effect. Vincenzo Gemito, born in Naples in 1852, is considered to be the most important Italian sculptor of the late nineteenth century and is increasingly regarded as one of its greatest draughtsmen. An orphan street child until he was adopted by a poor artisan, he was put out as an assistant to the sculptor Emanuele Caggiano at the age of nine. He then attached himself informally to the older but more progressive sculptor Stanislao Lista, who apparently encouraged him to work from street models. Having acquired the skills of modeling in clay and wax, the young man set himself up independently. In 1868 he exhibited a sculpture at the Promotrice di Belle Arti in Naples, The Card Player, that showed a Neapolitan urchin scratching his head and studying a hand of cards. The work attracted the attention of Victor Emmanuel II, king of Italy, who purchased a bronze cast of it for the Capodimonte collection, a notable honor for the sixteen-year-old sculptor. Gemito cultivated a kind of rugged realism in the interpretations of his subjects, conveyed by contrasting rough and smooth surfaces. His drawing oeuvre kept pace with his sculpture, and what has appropriately been termed his "naturalistic bizarrerie" is seen in 1876 in the terra-cotta Chinese Acrobat and also in a series of pen-and-ink studies of fisher boys, which culminated in the life-size bronze Little Fisher Boy (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence). From 1877-1881 Gemito lived in Paris, where he was a friend of the sculptor Ernest Meissonnier, whose work could not have been more different from his own. On his return to Naples he incorporated another thread of tradition into his work, that of his classical predecessors in Pompeii and Herculaneum, which resulted in the bronze sculpture Water...