Giovan Battista Amendola Italian, 1848-1887

Amendola is today best known for his sculptural re-workings of groups from the paintings of Frederic Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.  These were executed during a fecund period he spent in England from 1878.  Born in Naples, where he trained until moving to Rome in 1866, Amendola’s early work was influenced by the neo-classicism of his teacher Pietro Tenerani.  He exhibited widely in Italy during the 1870s, winning most acclaim with religious subjects.  In England he quickly established himself in Leighton’s and Alma-Tadema’s circle making many portraits.  He returned to Naples shortly before his death to undertake the commission of a monumental statue of Gioacchino Murat, the second Napoleonic king of Naples, for the façade of the Palazzo Reale.

It was surely during his last year, back in Naples, that Amendola made this engaging genre study of a Neapolitan man, probably a lawyer, purposefully striding along holding an umbrella behind his back. It shows Amendola to have been at the height of his powers at his untimely death, aged only 41. Certainly Oscar du Mesnil’s patronage was not exclusive to Gemito and works by several other contemporary sculptors were in his collection.