20th Century, Italian Sculpture by Helen König Scavini, Lenci Manufactory

19th century, Italian white marble sculpture by Pompeo Marchesi with cupid, Italy, 1840 This valuable sculpture, made in white marble in 1840, is a work signed by Pompeo Marchesi....

18th Century, Italian Bronze Sculpture with Venus Removing Her Sandal This bronze sculpture represents Venus as she takes off her sandal. Made in the neoclassical era in Italy, it consists of the bronze sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, Venus for the Romans. The naked goddess, getting ready for the bath, makes the very human gesture of loosing a sandal. The left arm is raised, as if to compensate the position while maintaining the balance. Next to her, wrapped around a rocky spur, is a dolphin, an animal iconographically linked to the goddess because of his birth from the foam of the sea. The figure rests on a cylindrical and concave bronze base, with finely chiselled reserves. The bronze element is in turn resting on a africano marble cylinder with black of Belgium marble base. Venus is one of the major Roman goddesses primarily associated with eros and beauty. It is traditionally understood as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, physical and passionate love, among the major deities of Olympus. His birth is due to a dramatic event: Uranus, Heaven, is mutilated by his son Cronus, who punishes him for the wrongs inflicted on his mother. The torn limbs of Uranus fall into the sea and fertilize the foam of the waves of the island of Cyprus. From the waves emerges in all its splendor Aphrodite. Since the 4th century, Aphrodite begins to be represented with characters more human and less heroic. Praxiteles with the 'Aphrodite Cnidia,' for the first time in the history of sculpture, depicts her naked, as she prepares to take a ritual bath. From the Pressitele’s model descend the Capitoline Venus (Capitoline Museums of Rome) and the Venus de’ Medici (Uffizi Museum of Florence) accompanied by Eros on the back of a dolphin. This vein also includes a subject frequently attested in the Hellenistic and then Roman Ages, with examples in bronze, marble and terracotta: the Aphrodite who fastens the sandal. The luck that this type of representation had in the following centuries is demonstrated by the vast number of sculptures that represent it. In this bronze work the goddess resumes the position of Oplontis’s Naked Venus: here Venus holds an apple in her left hand, a reminder of her victory in the beauty contest in which she prevailed over Minerva and Juno by judgment of Paris. In our bronze instead, the hand seems to want to shake the apple, which however has not been molded. Perhaps the bronze is inspired by another work, such as the bronzes kept in the archaeological museum of Padua. Another example is the famous 'Venus in bikini" found in Pompeii, so-called because it depicts the goddess in the same pose, but with the breasts and hips covered by bands painted in gold. The dolphin depicted next to it could be inspired instead to the Medici Venus...

16th Century, Pair of Italian Lacquered and Gilt Wood Sculptures Torch Holders The pair of sculptures, in finely carved wood, lacquered and gilded, was born as a torch holder, and ...

20th century, Italian bronze planter or Gueridon Measures: cm W 56 x maximum diameter 51 x H 90. H on the floor of the wide 81 cm This refined planter was made in Italy, in Naples, towards the Early 20th Century in the style of «Retour d'Egypte». It consists of a tripod structure in finely chiselled gilded bronze and lacquered in tones. Each leg originates with scroll decorations and phytomorphic elements with golden details, supported by a sphinx with hairstyle, tail and golden wings. This sits on a curvilinear and wavy element decorated with golden ramage and a man’s head with a long beard of classic taste. The legs end with an injured foot and rest on a tripartite base that connects them. In the middle of each leg there is a bronze junction with curls and volutes that converges towards the others in the center, where a vertical element contributes to the momentum and gracefulness of the whole. The basin of the planter is in lacquered tin, with gold edges and reserves. The rising part of the tub has some holes that allow the breathability of the space. This tripod is inspired, with variations, to a famous model of the brothers Luigi and Antonio Manfredini, active in Milan at the beginning of the nineteenth century, financed by the viceroy of Italy Eugenio de Beauharnais, adopted son of Napoleon Bonaparte, for the opening of the real manufacture of Eugenia. The Retour d'Egypte style was widely echoed in France and Europe and originated from General Bonaparte’s military campaign in Egypt in 1799. The fashion of the Egyptians had already in Italy found a previous interpreter in the engraver Giovan Battista Piranesi, but the vast diffusion that also had in the furniture the Egyptian ornament...

Lenci porcelain figurine, Turin, by Helen Konig Scavini, "Mamma," 1930s Lenci porcelain figurine, Turin, designed by Helen Konig Scavini, 1930s. The pi...

Porcelain by Helen Konig Scavini Lenci - Turin "The studentessa" Beautiful porcelain depicting a student woman on a shelf with books, blonde and with a seductive look, with a hat and...

Lenci ceramic elephant 1950 Elena Scavini, Italy.

Enamel ceramic sculpture by Abele Jacopi (1882-1957) signed Lenci. Art Deco period, Italy, circa 1950.