RAFFAELLO ROMANELLI | WOODLAND NYMPH

Sale: Sotheby's, London, February 28 1997, lot 143, illustrated

Sale: Christie's, London, December 4 2014, lot 1578, illustrated

Acquired at the above sale

The Galleria Romanelli was founded during the mid-ninteenth century by the sculptor Pasquale Romanelli and was one of many workshops in Florence that catered to the export market. Pasquale's son Raffaello Romanelli later took over the studio and he continued in his family's tradition by creating high quality copies of Antique sculpture and depictions of the mythological and allegorical subjects that were popular at the time, including this figure of a woodland nymph. He also worked on important commissions for the Italian government and is remembered today for the portraits he produced of kings, popes, and aristocrats, such as his bust of Princess Marina Borghese which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.