Italian, 19th century

Gifted by the American painter Ralph Wormeley Curtis (1854-1922) to Edith Millicent Bronson, later Countess Ruccellai, 1895;

Sotheby's 7 December 2021, lot 5 (as 'Probably Italian, 17th century');

where acquired by the present owner

In 1895, this bodkin was a wedding gift from the American Impressionist painter Ralph Wormsley Curtis to his friend Edith Millicent Bronson on her marriage in Venice to Count Cosimo Rucellai whose family seat was the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence. Ralph Curtis’s family occupied Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal. His parents invited Henry James to use it as his Venetian home away from home. Its opulent grand salon was painted by John Singer Sargeant, a relative. Further along the Grand Canal, Edith Bronson and her mother in Ca’ Alivise, opposite the church of the Salute. Whistler, a friend, and here again a relative, drew Edith and painted her mother. Here, too, there was an important literary attachment: Mrs Bronson was a close friend and lifelong friend of the poet Robert Browning. He wrote of pretty, lively Edith that she was the perfect guide to the city knowing all its hidden alleyways. Following her marriage, the Count and Countess remained in Venice for several years before moving to his family palazzo. It may be there that the Contessa ordered the fitted case for the bodkin which is embossed in gold with her initials and coronet.