Lot Essay
Born in Rezzato, Brescia, where he attended the School of Design, Giovanni Battista Lombardi (d. 1880) studied under Lorenzo Vela in Milan and subsequently moved to Rome to work with Pietrò Tenerani on funerary monuments, busts and reliefs of religious and classical inspiration. Establishing his own studio, Lombardi progressed to more genre and intimate subjects and was particularly keen on oriental subjects and the portrayal of Old Testament heroines. The present marble, signed and dated 1864, is probably a depiction of Ruth, the virtuous Moabite woman who was the great-grandmother of David.