Musidora

As a student of Stefano Ricci (1765- 1837) and later with Aristodemo Costoli (1803-1871) at the Academia of Florence, Fantacchiotti became renowned for his neoclassical style evoking the great Italian masters Antonio Canova and Lorenzo Bartolini. This monumental and true-to-life figure of Venus emerging from the bath is a evocative of the artist’s surviving oeuvre, which includes works such as Pandora (sold Sotheby’s, London, 4 July 2023, lot 136) and Suzanna (now in the Pitti Palace, Florence). Another example of Venus, reduced in height, was sold from Sacombe Park, Hertfordshire, Christie’s, London, 11 October 1993, lot 20 (titled Bathing Venus).
The figure’s intended title, Musidora, is inspired by the James Thomson’s poem Summer, originally published in 1727 in which a bather is discovered along a stream by a young countryman, Damon, who must choose between succumbing to the temptation to spy upon her beauty or avert his gaze elsewhere. The scene was specifically popular with English artists, such as William Etty (1787–1849), but would have been well-known source materials to the Italian and French artists who often displayed works at the international exhibitions of the mid-19^th century. It is almost certainly that this figure of Musidora, impressive in scale and preserved with original pedestal is one and the same as the example which graces the Italian Court of London’s 1862 fair. The figure appeared alongside Fantacchiotti’s charming group of a cherub and hound emblematic of Love and Friendship and an allegory of Innocence.