Adamo Tadolini (1788-1868) Italian, Rome, 1828

with Heim Gallery, London, 1972;
with Colnaghi, New York, 1986

London, Heim Gallery, Paintings & sculpture 1770-1830, 1972, nos. 51-52 (as Sir Thomas Baring and his wife Mary Ursula);
New York, Colnaghi, The British face. A view of portraiture 1625-1850, 1986, no. 66

G. Tadolini (ed.), Ricordi biografici di Adamo Tadolini, Rome, 1900, pp. 169 and 253

Overall the condition of the busts is good with minor dirt and wear to the surface consistent with age. The busts may have been outside as the surfaces are a little dry. There has been some slight loss of surface detail. There is veining to the marble consistent with material, including some veins to the ladies neck and proper right shoulder, back of her head, and forehead. There are a few small chips to the busts such as at the drapery. There is a small naturally occurring inclusion to the woman's proper left eyelid. There is particular dirt to the man's nose and to the drapery above his proper right shoulder. There is also dirt to the back of the busts.
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Adamo Tadolini was Antonio Canova’s most trusted studio assistant, establishing an international reputation for himself as one of the last great Italian Neoclassical sculptors. Born in Bologna, he trained at the city’s Accademia di Belle Arte, where he received a rigorous education in the classical principles of sculpture. In 1814, he moved to Rome, winning the prize Canova had instituted for talented young sculptors. Impressed by Tadolini’s pure classicism, the master took him on as an assistant. Tadolini became so expert a marble carver that the versions he produced of his master’s models were (and still are) often thought to be originals by Canova himself; including, for example, the Cupid Reviving Psyche in the Villa Carlotta, Lake Como. As a sign of their closeness, Canova helped Tadolini to set up his own workshop in the Via dei Greci, which exists to this day.

The present busts represent George Baring and his wife Harriet, members of the distinguished London banking family. Barings Bank, which was formed in 1762, was one of London's most venerable financial institutions until it famously collapsed in 1992 because of the actions of a rogue trader based in Singapore; it was later subsumed into ING. Little is known about George Baring, apart from the fact that he sat for a miniature portrait by Engleheart in 1804 (Williamson and Engleheart, op. cit., pp. 87, 147). His brother Alexander, later Lord Ashburton, was, however, an important patron of the visual arts, who commissioned works by both Canova and Thorvaldsen in the 1820’s. It is probably through him that George was introduced to Tadolini.

Tadolini produced relatively few portrait busts, and so the present marbles are rare. The identities of the sitters are confirmed by the Ricordi biografici di Adamo Tadolini, which gives a complete list of the sculptor’s output. The busts of George and Harriet Baring are the only listed as costing 100 luingi, the others being recorded at 65 luigi each. The difference in price signifies that the sculptures of the Barings were over-lifesize, in accordance with the scale of the present busts. The monumental size of the busts lends to them an added sense of imperious classicism. Tadolini’s preoccupation with the ancient past manifests itself in the virtuoso carving of the drapes, beautifully trimmed, in the bust of Mrs Baring, with a brocaded edge. Only the contemporary Regency hairstyles reveal the early 19^th-century date of the busts, with Harriet wearing her hair in an elaborate 1820’s braided arrangement and George sporting Byronesque sideburns.

RELATED LITERATURE
G. C. Williamson and H. L. Engleheart, George Engleheart, London, 1902, pp. 89, 147