Ulisse Cambi

Ulisse Cambi entered the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence at a very young age and continued his studies in Rome from 1832. Having returned to Florence in 1837, he eventually became professor of sculpture at the Accademia in Florence, favouring a neoclassicism tempered by the naturalism made popular in Italian sculpture by Pietro Tenerani and Lorenzo Bartolini. While his oeuvre included public monuments, such as the statue of Cellini (1845) for the Florentine Loggia degli Uffizi, Cambi became particularly known for his representations of children, often in an allegorical context.

Amor mendicante clearly proved among the sculptor's most popular models; according to Cambi's biographers, it was replicated in at least 30 versions - though surprisingly, the present marble appears to be the only example to have surfaced at auction in recent memory. First conceived in 1851, the model was presented much later, in 1867, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, which testifies to its enduring success. The inscription on the present marble indicates that it was also shown at the Prima Esposizione Italiana in 1861.

Representing the mischievous God of Love begging with one hand, while concealing his arrow behind his back, poised to inflict an amorous wound on the viewer, Amor mendicante is a playful invention in the Romantic taste. The present marble demonstrates Ulisse Cambi's extraordinary carving technique, with deeply cut folds of drapery and luxuriant ringlets in the boy's hair.

RELATED LITERATURE
V. Vicario, Gli Scultori Italiani dal Neoclassicismo al Liberty, Lodi, 1994, vol. 1, pp. 230-232; A. Panzetta, Nuovo Dizionario degli Scultori Italiani dell'Ottocento e del Primo Novecento, Turin, 2003, p. 194