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ID: POL-001426-P

Tombstone of Baroness Enedina Giordano Sanna Apostoli by Victor Brodzki in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome

ID: POL-001426-P

Tombstone of Baroness Enedina Giordano Sanna Apostoli by Victor Brodzki in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome

The magnificent tombstone is located in a large family chapel with a crypt. A naturalistic recreation of a scene with a woman lying on an antique bed and a young child by her side.

The wife of the Roman diplomat Enedin Sanna, who died in 1873 at the age of 23, was commemorated with a chisel by one of the most famous Polish sculptors in Rome in the 19th century, settled there from 1855. The model of the tomb was awarded at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878. In Rome, it achieved great fame, crowds even visited Brodzki's workshop because of it; it was widely praised in the press (there were even poetic interpretations of it) and to this day remains one of the most visited tombs in Rome's largest cemetery. In it, the artist developed the concept of his earlier tombstone of another young deceased beauty, Laura Przezdziecka (from Czarny Ostrowie in Podolia, now Kamieniec Podolski). The latter's design in Brodzki's Roman workshop was to become very popular and gain him publicity, which led to it being chosen by the Marquis Giuseppe Sanna as the model for his wife's monument. The sentimental composition, repeated many times in academic sculpture of the time (a woman lying on a bed, a child beside her, introducing a genre accent), here became the field for Brodzki's extraordinary display of technique. "Everything here has been rendered with naturalistic attention to every detail, immeasurably rich here, every fold, frill or wrinkle in the fabric. The extraordinary delicacy and purity of the chisel means that the marble has lost its stony weight, taking on the form of the artist's imagined varied matter of species and texture" (Maria I. Kwiatkowska). However, a too easy showy quality was reproached to Brodzki by his contemporary Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Related persons:
Time of origin:
1878
Creator:
Wiktor Brodzki (rzeźbiarz; Polska, Rosja, Włochy)(preview)
Bibliography:
  • Lameński L., Rzeźbiarze polscy w XIX-wiecznym Rzymie, Sztuka Europy Wschodniej 3, Warszawa-Toruń 2015, s. 72-73.
Publikacja:
18.07.2024
Ostatnia aktualizacja:
11.09.2024
Author:
prof. Andrzej Pieńkos
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