Pudicity (also known as the Faustina Livia)
Alberto Dressler
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1900 - 1949
Materials
Bronze and marble
Measurements
560 x 160 mm; 160 mm (Length)
Order this imageCollection
Tyntesfield, North Somerset
NT 20555
Summary
Bronze on a, possibly, marmo rosso and nero belgio marble plinth, Pudicity also known as the Faustina Livia (after Roman late 1st century AD) by Alberto Dressler (Milan 1878 - 1949), after Roman late 1st century AD. An Italian/Roman bronze figure of a classical maiden shown standing draped in robes and shawl and wearing a diadem, looking modest, on an integral square base. The original statue was in the Mattei collection in Rome since the end of the sixteenth century and recorded in 1704. It was sold to Pope Clement XIV in 1770 and is now in the Vatican museum. Horace Walpole had a copy made by Filippo della Valle in 1740-1 in memory of his mother, Carherine, which was erected in Westminster Abbey.
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust from the estate of the late George Richard Lawley Gibbs, 2nd Baron Wraxall (1928 – 2001) with the assistance of the NHMF, the Art Fund and donations from members and supporters in 2002
Makers and roles
Alberto Dressler, sculptor after Roman, 1st century AD (late) , sculptor
References
Haskell and Penny 1981: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, 74 Hyde Minor 1997 Vernon Hyde Minor, Passive Tranquility: The Sculpture of Filippo Della Valle, Volume 87, Part 5, 1997 , p. 87 Ayres 1997 Philip J. Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-century England, 1997 , p. 209