Giulio Tadolini

Four generations of the Tadolini family worked in the same studio in Rome on Via del Babuino, and they were one of the most important sculpture dynasties of the 19th century. The first Tadolini to find acclaim was Adamo, who quickly became the privileged protégé of Canova. Adamo inherited Canova’s atelier which would become the workshop of the Tadolini family (today, the studio is preserved as the Canova-Tadolini Museum). Following Adamo was his son Scipio, who was known for the Romantic quality with which he endowed his father's Neoclassical style.

Giulio Tadolini was the third generation of the Tadolini dynasty, the son of Scipio and grandson of Adamo. Giulio worked during the advent of the Orientalist movement, when artists began creating works influenced by the exoticism of the east.

The present Odalisque is an example of Giulio’s distinctive Orientalist style, but it still maintains an element of romantic Classicism, evocative of the work of his father. The figure stands in contrapposto, with drapery just covering her lower body. She is shown in the act of tying a jeweled necklace around her neck, alluding 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