Luigi Bienaimé

Luigi Bienaimé, who had won a scholarship from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, became Thorvaldsen’s chief assistant and from 1819 managed his studio with Tenerani and Freund. He was a sculptor of international repute whose studio at Piazza Barberini 5 was visited by Czar Nicholas I in 1845. The Hermitage has at least five of his works and many others were commissioned by German patrons such as the King of Württemburg, Prince Oldenburg and Graf Dietrichstein.

Bienaimé's original plaster of the Guardian Angel is in the Accademia di Carrara. Dated 1831, it was designed in Rome and epitomises the deep influence of Thorvaldsen. The delicate sentiment and restrained pathos of the group inspired generations of memorial and funerary sculpture and it has rightly become one of the sculptor's most successful compositions.

RELATED LITERATURE

J.B. Hartmann, 'La Triade Italiana del Thorvaldsen, Alcune Considerazioni su Temi Mitologici e Cristiani', Antalogia di Belle Arti, 1984, nos. 23-24, pp. 106-107; A. Panzetta, Nuovo Dizionario degli Scultori Italiani dell'Ottocento e del Primo Novecento, Turin, 2003, vol. I, p. 91