Giulio Tadolini (1849 - 1918)

This marble and bronze bust of a Young Berber Woman, remarkable for its quality of execution, depicts with exquisite precision the smallest details of her costume and the jewelry that adorns her. She is dressed in a woolen cloak, probably an abbas, fastened by a bronze brooch, which covers her shoulders and head. Her face, with its gentle smile—beautiful, sincere, and rendered with great sensitivity—gains even more humanity through subtle realistic touches, such as the faint shadows under her eyes.

A third-generation sculptor, Giulio Tadolini, born in Rome in 1849, was the son of Scipione Tadolini (1822–1893) and grandson of Adamo Tadolini (1788–1868). He began his training with the naturalist painter Cesare Fracassini (1838–1868), and continued in the studio of the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871–1949). It was there that he developed an interest in Orientalist subjects, producing several versions of The Odalisque with a Parrot. His first known sculpted work was a medal exhibited in 1871. Four years later, he created his first large-scale sculpture, Cleopatra Before Caesar, inspired by themes from his family’s studio.

Giulio went on to develop a personal style, combining the Neoclassical models of his background with the fashionable Orientalist themes of his time. In 1878, he exhibited The Pompeian Woman After the Bath at the Paris Exposition Universelle, which was immediately acquired by the Marquis de Sotomayor. Four years later, on the occasion of the eighteenth centenary of the eruption of Vesuvius, he presented A Pompeian Mother in Flight, a sculpture of remarkable dramatic intensity. At the same time, Giulio’s work evolved toward a more realistic approach, evident in two Orientalist bronze busts he presented at the Milan Exhibition, followed by the busts of a Moroccan and a Nubian, exhibited in Munich and Turin (1883 and 1884), as well as in the present example.

Among Tadolini’s other notable works are the Bust of Giuseppe Beltrani, the commemorative statue of Bartolomeo Borghesi (on the Capitoline Hill), and the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II (Perugia), created after winning the 1886 competition and cast by Alessandro Nelli. For the royal family, Giulio produced an equestrian statuette of King Umberto I and a bust of Queen Margherita of Savoy. Finally, Tadolini’s immense reputation also earned him the commission for the Funerary Monument of Pope Leo XIII for the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome (1906).

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Panzetta, Nuovo dizionario degli scultori Italiani dell'ottocento e del primo novecento, Turin, 2003, pp. 900 ;

T. F. Hufschmidt, Tadolini, Adamo, Scipione, Giulio, Enrico, Quattro Generazioni di Scultori a Roma Nei Secoli XIX e XX, Rome, 1996, pp. 65-68.