Rudolf Schadow (1786-1822), Italian, Rome, 1819

commissioned by Henry Patten for his house in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, 1819;
Annaghmore House, Tullamore, Offaly, Ireland

Probably Palazzo Caffieri, Rome, April 1820

probably the version mentioned in J.D. Passavant, Ansichten über die bildenden Künste und Darstellung des Ganges derselben in Toscana, Heidelberg/ Speier, 1820, p.20;
G. Eckardt, Ridolfo Schadow. Ein Bildhauer in Rom zwischen Klassizismus und Romantik, Cologne, 2000, pp. 42 and 98

Overall the condition of the marble is very good. The proper left arm was carved separately and joined at the edge of the drapery. There are some spats of paint, mainly on the shoulders. There is overall surface dirt, mostly in the hair. There is some naturally occurring veining and tranlucency in the marble, notably in the shoulders and on the right thigh. There are some remains of gilding to the ball of yarn. There are some slight losses to the toes of the proper right foot and an original section was inserted into the front of the base. The base with revolving top is overall in a distressed condition.
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On several occasions during the spring of 1819 Rudolph Schadow contently reports progress on marble versions of his famous Spinnerin and a Sandalbinderin for the Irish Grand Tourist Henry Patten. Upon finishing Patten's Spinnerin on 30 March Schadow entered it in the prestigious exhibition for German expatriate artists which was staged in Rome during the visit of Emperor Franz I. This location of this version was unknown until the recent discovery of the present sculpture in an Irish country house. It bears a dedication to Patten which is identical to that on its pendant, a Sandalbinderin sold in these rooms on 12 June 1986 (lot 201) which Eckardt records as being in a German private collection (op.cit. no. WVZ32.4).

Like many talented Northern artists Rudolph Schadow established himself in Rome rather than in his home country. In 1812 he arrived in the city with his good friend and fellow sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and was welcomed to the community of German and Scandinavian artists residing at Casa Buti, a guesthouse ran by Anna Maria Buti and her daughters. Thanks to a letter of recommendation from his father, the Prussian court sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow, Antonio Canova and Berthel Thorvaldsen soon arranged Schadow's admission to the Accademia di San Luca. Strengthened by a warm reception and an inspiring environment Schadow achieved his first public success by 1813-14, when he modelled the Sandalbinderin. This seated 12-year-old girl binding her sandal would set the tone thematically and compositionally for later genre figures, including the Spinnerin.

In March 1816 the first, careful mention of the Spinnerin is made in Guattini's Memorie Enciclopediche. It simply states that an 'English gentleman' has ordered a marble version of Schadow's model of a 'seated woman who spins'. The sculptor himself confirms having finished a Spinnerin in a letter to Rauch in April of the same year. According to a later account by his father, Schadow had observed the graceful shape adopted by young spinsters in Rome whilst twisting their yarn and was inspired to create a pendant for his Sandalbinderin. Elena Buti, the daughter of his hostess who would later become Schadow's fiancée, possibly sat for the sculptor. Like the Sandalbinderin, the spinster is seated on a square section of wall on a plinth which is rounded at the front. Both young women are immersed in an everyday act, their poses emphasising female grace. Despite being paired with the earlier work, the Spinnerin is a marked departure from the Sandalbinderin because its composition is no longer reliant on a classical prototype. It left Schadow free to adopt more technically challenging elements such as the delicate modern hairstyle. In the drapery the sculptor attained an unprecedented lightness and sense of translucency.

The Spinnerin made Schadow a famous man. In the six years from the conception of the model to his premature death in 1822 he certainly created eight but possibly even thirteen full-size marbles for such patrons as King Frederick William of Prussia, Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy of Hungary, Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, the Duke of Devonshire (to whom he also sold the two Dioscura reliefs in 1819) and the Baron von Lebzelter. Much of the praise was captured in writing. The Prussian envoy to the Vatican thought the Spinnerin: 'very gracious, and acclaimed by the connoisseurs in every aspect', while a jealous Ferdinand Tieck wrote in a letter: 'Now I have heard Rudolph Schadow's Spinnerin being praised over everything. He lives and dies with the Spinnerin.' As late as 1852 Charlotte Eaton records: 'the most beautiful of his works, amongst many extremely beautiful, was the Filatrice, a female figure of singular delicacy and grace ... The greatest artists of antiquity might have been proud of this admirable production.'

RELATED LITERATURE
G. Eckardt, Ridolfo Schadow. Ein Bildhauer in Rom zwischen Klassizismus und Romantik, Cologne, 2000, pp. 26-43, pp. 84-85, no. WVZ32.4 and pp. 91-98, no. WVZ37; P. Bloch et al., Ethos and Pathos. Die Berliner Bildhauerschule 1786-1914, exh. cat. Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 1990, pp. 273-275, nos. 232-33; J. Kenworthy-Browne, 'A ducal patron of sculptors', Apollo, 96, October 1972, pp. 324-25; C. A. Eaton, Rome in the nineteenth century, 2 vols., London, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 307-8