A RARE PAIR OF ITALIAN POLYCHROME MARBLE OVER-LIFESIZE MORETTO BUSTS ON COLUMNS, LATE 19TH CENTURY

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A RARE PAIR OF ITALIAN POLYCHROME MARBLE OVER-LIFESIZE MORETTO BUSTS ON COLUMNS LATE 19TH CENTURY Depicting pendant male and female figures, each with a white simulated cloth headdress inlaid with variant marble and alabaster stripes and with hoop earrings with lapis beads, male wearing a Portasanta marble fez, white marble collar and green breccia tunic mounted with red and yellow marble cabochons, female with a feather in her turban, the top of her head covered with a cap decorated with a crescent moon and star, her torso with a diagonal red marble sash, each on 'S'-scroll sided socles and set on separate red alabaster inset Bardiglio Cappella marble faceted hexagonal tapering columns, decorated with drapery carved from Breccia Corallina and Giallo marble drapery respectively busts 82cm and 76cm high, 64cm and 67cm wide across the shoulders socles 17.5cm high, 27.5cm wide, 20cm deep columns 102.5cm high, bases 44cm wide approximately 201.5cm and 195.5cm high overall Provenance: María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat (1921-2012) at her apartment on Avenida Del Libertador, Buenos Aires, Argentina, until soldChristie's, London, 14 November 2019, lot 577. These statuary busts belong to a form of European decorative sculpture depicting unnamed people from the Americas, the Far East, the Middle East and Africa- usually in in highly stylised, often stereotypical ways. These representations are also to be found across Western material culture from ceramics to silverware, heraldry to jewellery, furniture, architecture, paintings and prints. This form of sculpture was popularised and developed into a recognisable type in Italy, chiefly Venice, from the 17th century onwards. The 17th and 18th centuries saw their popularity surge in conjunction with colonial expansion during this period and decorative busts of this type were prized with examples in the collection of Cardinal Richelieu as early as 1643. They constituted important decorative elements of the residences of 18th and 19th century connoisseurs and demonstrated both their owner's wealth and taste, but also the reach of their extensive travels. This fascination and desire for what is sometimes termed the Exotic was expressed in all its forms; silks, spices, marbles and precious and semi-precious stones and minerals, clothing, metals, places and peoples. The craftsmen of Venice, Europe's maritime gateway to Turkey, the Levant and North Africa, produced artwork and objet d'art reflecting these interests and passions. This over-lifesize pair of mixed multicoloured marble statuary busts are exemplary of this passion- distinguished by their scale, vibrant colours, clothes, jewellery and mounting on their drapery swathed pedestal columns. For comparison, please see a pair of busts presumably from the same workshop with very similar physiognomy and matching distinctive S-scroll socles which sold at Christie's Paris, Sculpture et Objets d'Art Européens, 19 June 2018, lot 126 (€122,500 inc. premium).

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