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Lot Essay
Enrico Astorri (1859-1921) began his studies in Parma and Genoa. From 1885 he worked from his studio at 16 via Varese in Milan, exhibiting in Italy and abroad.
By family tradition this marble was exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle and this is corroborated by Vicario who notes that La Filatrice Araba won Astorri a Gold Medal at the exhibition and when shown in Monaco the following year (bid, p. 29). A bronze life-size version is recorded in a private collection.
Although not as prolific as the industrious workshops of Galleria Romanelli and Cesare Lapini, Astorri, like his peers, adopted the fashionable styles of the day. Favouring sentimental subjects such as children and genre figures, here he adopts the Orientalist style, capturing the worldly expression of a young mother seated before her carpet loom with babe in arms. The use of this unusual pink marble with slight black veins, possibly Cipolin Rose, also distinguishes this piece from the more usual white marbles produced for the tourist market.
Astorri's public commissions included a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Parma and a statue of Christopher Columbus in Bettola. He produced numerous mausoleum and funereal monuments for the famous Cemetery of Staglieno, Genoa and the monumental cemetery in Milan. He is also recorded as having made portrait busts of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Sculpture by Astorri is preserved in the collections of the Museo de Piacenza and the Museo Civico Revoltella in Trieste.
By family tradition this marble was exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle and this is corroborated by Vicario who notes that La Filatrice Araba won Astorri a Gold Medal at the exhibition and when shown in Monaco the following year (bid, p. 29). A bronze life-size version is recorded in a private collection.
Although not as prolific as the industrious workshops of Galleria Romanelli and Cesare Lapini, Astorri, like his peers, adopted the fashionable styles of the day. Favouring sentimental subjects such as children and genre figures, here he adopts the Orientalist style, capturing the worldly expression of a young mother seated before her carpet loom with babe in arms. The use of this unusual pink marble with slight black veins, possibly Cipolin Rose, also distinguishes this piece from the more usual white marbles produced for the tourist market.
Astorri's public commissions included a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Parma and a statue of Christopher Columbus in Bettola. He produced numerous mausoleum and funereal monuments for the famous Cemetery of Staglieno, Genoa and the monumental cemetery in Milan. He is also recorded as having made portrait busts of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Sculpture by Astorri is preserved in the collections of the Museo de Piacenza and the Museo Civico Revoltella in Trieste.