Lorenzo Bartolini

{{Short description|Italian sculptor (1777–1850)}} {{Expand Italian|topic=bio|date=October 2023}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name =  | honorific_suffix = | image = Musée Ingres-Bourdelle - Portrait de Lorenzo Bartolin - Close-up- Ingres - Joconde06070000015.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Portrait by [[Ingres]] (detail, 1805) | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name =  | birth_date ={{birth date|1777|01|7|df=y}} | birth_place = | baptised =  | death_date = {{death date and age|1850|01|20|1777|01|7|df=y}} | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | education = | alma_mater = | known_for = Sculpture | notable_works = | style = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | father = | mother = | relatives = | family = | awards =  | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website =  | module = }} '''Lorenzo Bartolini''' ([[Prato]], 7 January 1777{{spaced ndash}} [[Florence]], 20 January 1850) was an Italian [[sculpture|sculptor]] who infused his [[neoclassicism]] with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the [[Florentine Renaissance]] rather than the overpowering influence of [[Antonio Canova]] that circumscribed his Florentine contemporaries.

==Biography== [[Image:03 2015 Monumento a Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, La Magnanimità di Elisa, Granduchessa di Toscana-Lorenzo Bartolini-Galleria dell'Accademia (Firenze) Photo Paolo Villa FOTO9225.JPG|thumb|left|225px|Monument to Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (the ''Magnanimity of Elisa'')]] Bartolini was born in [[Savignano di Prato]], near [[Prato]], [[Tuscany]].

After studying at the [[Florentine Academy of Fine Arts]], honing his skills and reputation as a modeller in alabaster, he went in 1797 to [[Paris]], where he studied painting under [[Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Desmarais]], and afterwards sculpture under [[François-Frédéric Lemot]]. The [[bas-relief]] ''Cleobis and Biton'', with which he gained the second prize of the Academy in 1803, at once established his fame as a sculptor and gained for him a number of influential patrons.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Bartolini, Lorenzo|volume=3|page=450}}</ref> His bas-relief of the ''Battle of Austerlitz'' was among those executed for the column erected in [[Place Vendôme]]. He also executed many minor pieces for [[Vivant Denon]], besides portrait busts of the opera composers [[Etienne Méhul|Méhul]] and [[Luigi Cherubini|Cherubini]].

His great patron, however, was [[Napoleon]], for whom he executed a colossal bust, and who sent him, on the recommendations of his sister [[Elisa Baciocchi]], to the [[Accademia Carrara]] in [[Bergamo]] in 1807, to teach sculpture,<ref name="EB1911"/> in spite of local opposition. Here he remained as the quasi-official portrait sculptor to the Bonapartes until after the fall of Napoleon. In 1833, Bartolini was elected to the [[National Academy of Design]] as an Honorary member. He then took up residence in [[Florence]], where he lived until his death.

He is buried in the [[Santa Croce, Florence|Church of Santa Croce]] in north-east Florence. [[Image:Bartolini-ninfa2.jpg|thumb|225px|''Nymph and the Scorpion'',<br> [[Louvre Museum]]]] [[File:Lorenzo Bartolini, Vénus Couchée, 1820-1830, Musée Fabre, Montpellier.jpg|thumb|225px|''Lying Venus'', 1820–1830,<br> [[Musée Fabre]], Montpellier]]

==Works== In Florence, his Bonapartist associations and his departures as an artist from the strict [[Antonio Canova|Canovan classicism]] being taught at the Academy<ref>TCI ''Firenze e Dintorni'' (1964:30) characterized most Florentine neoclassical sculptors as ''canoviani di modesto valore'' ("Canovans of modest worth"); the Florentine Galleria d'Arte Moderna used to begin with a gallery with Canova's bust of Napoleon in the center of a gallery that was surrounded by portrait busts, in which Bartolini's ''Bust of Carlo Ludovico di Borbone, duca di Lucca'' could be directly compared with busts by Bartolini's contemporaries.</ref>" limited his opportunities. His naturalistic and somewhat sentimental marble ''L'Ammostatore'' ("The Bird's-nest Stealer", 1820) took its inspiration from under-appreciated Quattrocento Florentine sculptors like [[Andrea del Verrocchio]]. In his decade of impoverishment, supportive commissions came from foreigners; the funeral monument to Princess [[Zofia Czartoryska]] in the [[Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence|Santa Croce]], Florence's Westminster Abbey, is an anti-classical statement for naturalism. Two other Bartolini monuments in Santa Croce can be compared with it; in the Capella Giugni is his monument to [[Charlotte Bonaparte]], but when the occasion required a more formal approach, as in the monument to [[Leone Battista Alberti]], the result could be chilly.

A major commission came in 1830 from the sons of the Russian emigree prince [[Nicola Demidoff]], who had retired to Florence. The sons commissioned the [[Monument to Nicola Demidoff, Florence|Monument to Nicola Demidoff]] to honor their father, which was placed in Piazza Demidoff, Florence. The commission's multiple figures took shape during Bartolini's last decades; it was completed by Bartolini's assistant [[Pasquale Romanelli]].

His works are varied and include an immense number of portrait busts. The best are, perhaps, the group of ''Charity'' (1824), the ''Hercules and Lichas'' and ''Faith in God'',<ref name="EB1911"/> commissioned by the widow of Giuseppe Poldi Pezzoli (1768-1833), a wealthy landowner. His portrait statue of ''Machiavelli'' took its place as his only commission among the long series of historical Florentine males provided for the empty exterior niches of the [[Uffizi]].  He sculpted the ''[[Monument to Maria Luisa di Borbone, Lucca|Monument to Maria Luisa di Borbone]]'' depicting the former Duchess and located in the piazza in front of the Ducal Palaceof Lucca.

== Honours == * '''1847''': Member of the [[Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium]]<ref>Index biographique des membres et associés de l'Académie royale de Belgique (1769-2005)</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons category|Lorenzo Bartolini}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070629123321/http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Biografie/Bartolini.htm La Scultura Italiana: Lorenzo Bartolini] (Italian) * {{DBI|first=Isa|last=Belli Barsali|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lorenzo-bartolini_(Dizionario-Biografico)|volume=6|title=BARTOLINI, Lorenzo}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartolini, Lorenzo}} [[Category:1777 births]] [[Category:1850 deaths]] [[Category:People from the Province of Prato]] [[Category:19th-century Italian sculptors]] [[Category:Italian male sculptors]] [[Category:Neoclassical sculptors]] [[Category:Members of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium]] [[Category:19th-century Italian male artists]] [[Category:Artists from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany]]