Vittorio Caradossi Italian, b. 1861

Caradossi epitomises fin-de-siècle Tuscan sculpture.  Technically superb, most of his oeuvre is dominated by highly decorative groups and single nude figures in various symbolic or allegorical guises.  In works such as Tre Nereidi (Three mermaids, Il Fumo che sale verso le Nubi (Smoke sweeping up to the clouds)  or Shooting Stars, Caradossi was clearly catering to a strong demand from an international clientele for elaborate and sensual compositions.  Caradossi is also responsible, however, for some more sober and conventional public monuments, the most famous being the monument to the sculptor Desiderio da Settignano erected in the Renaissance artist's home town in 1904 and the memorial to Giuseppe Dolfi on the risorgimento hero's house in the Borgo San Lorenzo.

The present charming seated nude may be related to Caradossi's famous nude reclining in abandon entitled, La Dolce fa niente.  The latter is indebted to French sculpture and most notably Clésinger's Woman bitten by a snake.  To this genre Caradossi has added in the present marble a characteristically Italian love of polychrome sculpture in the combination of the coloured onyx and white marble.  A similar figure of seated nymph seated on an onyx rock sold for £32,000 as lot 56, Christie's London, 29 October 2002.

RELATED LITERATURE
Vicario, p.281; Panzetta p.77