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for Giovanni Bastianini
Giovanni Bastianini
Italian, 1830 - 1868
Italian sculptor. He began as a stonecutter in the quarries at Fiesole. He was sent by the learned printer Francesco Inghirami to study in Florence, first (1844–5) with Pio Fedi (1816–92) and then (1845–8) with Girolamo Torrini (d before 1858), with whom he collaborated on the statue of Donatello for the portico of the Uffizi. In line with the prominence of the Purismo movement in Florence in that period, Bastianini greatly admired Renaissance sculpture, which became his main source of inspiration. From 1848 to 1866 he was under contract to the antique dealer Giovanni Freppa ( fl 1842–66), who supplied him with casts and models as well as a stipend in exchange for which he executed numerous neo-Renaissance works, especially busts and bas-reliefs, most of which were sold as authentic.
Among Bastianini’s first forgeries are two probably stone bas-reliefs: The Singer (Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.), formerly attributed to Luca della Robbia, and the Virgin and Child (Paris, Louvre), copied from a tabernacle from the circle of Antonio Rossellino in the Via della Spada in Florence. Around 1850 he began a series of busts of Florentine Renaissance figures, often based on frescoes and medals of their time: Ginevra dei Benci (Florence, exh. Promotrice, 1851), Beatrice Portinari (plaster; Florence, Pitti), inspired by Verrocchio’s Lady with Flowers (Florence, Bargello) and Giovanna degli Albizi (c. 1860, wood and painted stucco; Washington, DC, N.G.A.), in the style of Desiderio da Settignano. Another work of this period is the Virgin and Child (London, V&A), which combines stylistic elements of Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano and was replicated in numerous copies. Also taken for a 15th-century work was a ‘pre-Raphaelite’ statuette of a Florentine Singer (Paris, Mus. Jacquemart-André) exhibited at the Exposition rétrospective des beaux-arts appliqués à l’industrie in Paris in 1865. The marble bust of Lucrezia Donati (c. 1860; London, V&A), after Mino da Fiesole, was executed for Freppa and is considered Bastianini’s masterpiece.
In 1861, when Donatello’s bust of Niccolò da Uzzano (Florence, Bargello) was first exhibited, Bastianini’s portraiture moved towards a greater realism. This led to such works as the bust of Girolamo Savonarola (c. 1863; London, V&A), the bust of the 16th-century Florentine poet Girolamo Benivieni (Paris, Louvre), executed for Freppa in 1863, and the bust of Marsilio Ficino (c. 1865; London, V&A). He also produced some sculptures in modern style, including the decorations (1862) for the Politeama (destr.) in Florence, the lunettes (1866) for the Banca d’Italia building in Florence, and the busts of Count Oliviero Jennison (1868) and Senator Filippo Antonio Gualterio (1868; both Florence, Pitti). Bastianini remained unknown until 1858 when his remarkable gifts as an interpreter of the Renaissance, and his modest and obscure life, were revealed in an article by Raffaello Foresi. He became internationally notorious just before his death, when the bust of Girolamo Benivieni was exhibited in Paris in 1865 at the Exposition Rétrospective, bought for the Louvre in 1867 as the work of Lorenzo di Credi, and then dramatically restored to Bastianini by a note in the Gazette des beaux-arts (15 Dec 1867) and in a book by his friend, the antiquarian Alessandro Foresi, Tour de Babel (1868).
Giancarlo Gentilini. "Bastianini, Giovanni." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T006804 (accessed March 22, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Italian, 1652 - 1725
