PRAYING BOY

Luigi Pampaloni studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara under the tutelage of Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850). His work shows an indebtedness to Bartolini, in combining the pure Neoclassicism of Antonio Canova with naturalism and an interest in genre subjects. The present marble is a particularly fine example of Pampaloni's Kneeling Boy which was first exhibited in plaster in 1826, when the Polish noblewoman Anna Potocki commissioned him for a funeral monument in commemoration of her youngest daughter Julia. While visiting her uncle, she saw in Pampaloni's studio two independent compositions of a figure of a young girl sleeping, and a young boy kneeling beside her in prayer. These she wanted duplicated for her proposed memorial in Cracow: the sculptures are now in the Baworowski Library in Lvov, Ukraine.