Giulio Tadolini

Overall the condition of the marble is good with dirt and minor wear to the surface consistent with age. There is some very minor veining consistent with the material. There are a few small chips and abrasions to the edges of the drapery, and a few abrasions to the toes. There are a few splashes of blue paint to the back of the drapery, and a little red staining to the drapery on the proper right side. There are two small holes in the grey marble base for lost metal handles to revolve the sculpture. The column is in three sections and has a revolving top. There are some chips and abrasions to the edges of the marble column.
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The Tadolini family counts among the most significant sculpture dynasties since the early 19^thcentury. Four generations of stone and bronze sculptors worked in the same studio on Via del Babuino for some 150 years. The first Tadolini to find acclaim was Adamo, who quickly became the privileged protégé of Canova. Adamo inherited Canova’s atelier, which was to become the workshop of the Tadolini dynasty. Today the studio is preserved as the Canova-Tadolini Museum. Following Adamo was his son Scipio, who found his own renown in adding a Romantic quality to the Classical style sculptures of his father.

Giulio Tadolini was the third generation of Tadolini, son of Scipio and grandson of Adamo. He was working in an expanding 19^th century Europe, when travel to exotic destinations was suddenly possible, giving rise to the Orientalist art movement. Giulio's imagination was inspired by the Orient (op. cit., no. 1807) and his works are often ornamented with gilt, silvered bronze, onyx and precious stones to achieve an effect of Orientalist exoticism.

The present sculpture of an Odalisque chimes with Giulio’s distinctive Orientalist style, but maintains an element of romantic Classicism, evocative of the work of his father. A comparable slightly larger marble sculpture of a Greek slave by Scipio sold in these rooms in 2010 for £133,250 (for another version see Panzetta, op. cit., no. 1808). The present figure drops her right hip in a traditional contraposto pose, while the low hanging drapery revealing the crease at the top of her leg adds an erotic element. The figure’s act of tying a jewelled necklace alludes to the exotic riches of the Orient which so enchanted contemporary imagination and defined many of Giulio’s most accomplished works.

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Panzetta, Nuovo dizionario degli scultori Italiani dell'ottocento e del primo novecento, Turin, 2003, pp. 900 and 919-921, nos. 1807 and 1808