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Lot Essay
Pietrò Calvi (d. 1884) studied at the Milan Academy and later under the sculptor Giovanni Seleroni. Working in both marble and bronze and often combining the two to very good effect, Calvi frequently took his subjects from the arts, particularly from Shakespeare and the opera. He sculpted figures which now decorate Milan Cathedral and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and in 1877 presented five busts to the city of Naples - Primavera, Mariuccia, Othello, Selika and Gennaro.
Selika was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1872 (No. 1525) and is the prima donna from L'Africaine, the five act opera by the Italian composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, first performed in 1865.
Selika is an example of the nineteenth century French and Italian operatic character type of an Orientalist non-European self-sacrificing tragic heroine, exemplified by Delibes' Lakmé, Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Liu in Turandot. Calvi presents Selika at the tragic climax of the opera. Formerly an African princess, Selika is enslaved by the dashing Portuguese naval officer and explorer Vasco de Gama. In a story full of intrigue, Selika ends up marrying Vasco in a bid to save his life, but at the marriage ceremony Vasco is reunited with his lover Inez and Selika, so moved by the two together, kills herself by inhaling the scent of the deadly flowers of the Manchineel tree, which here she holds in her hand.
Selika was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1872 (No. 1525) and is the prima donna from L'Africaine, the five act opera by the Italian composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, first performed in 1865.
Selika is an example of the nineteenth century French and Italian operatic character type of an Orientalist non-European self-sacrificing tragic heroine, exemplified by Delibes' Lakmé, Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Liu in Turandot. Calvi presents Selika at the tragic climax of the opera. Formerly an African princess, Selika is enslaved by the dashing Portuguese naval officer and explorer Vasco de Gama. In a story full of intrigue, Selika ends up marrying Vasco in a bid to save his life, but at the marriage ceremony Vasco is reunited with his lover Inez and Selika, so moved by the two together, kills herself by inhaling the scent of the deadly flowers of the Manchineel tree, which here she holds in her hand.