Live Auction Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 10AM:
34. Pio Fedi (Italian, 1816 – 1892) President Abraham Lincoln
Life Size White Marble Bust 1865
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the
sixteenth President of the United States, March 4, 1861 to April 15, 1865. As an
outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery and a political leader in the
western states, he won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected
president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States
by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the
American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of
slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage
of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.
Pio Fedi studied in Rome and Florence under some of the most
prominent sculptors of the post-Canova generation. He is well known for his
terracotta model of The Rape of Polyxena (combines Virgil’s and Euripedes’s
versions of the story), and many of his sculptures are still on display
throughout Italy.
A beautiful and remarkably rare white carrara marble bust of President Lincoln,
sculpted by the famous Italian artist Pio Fedi (1816-1892). Sculpted in 1865 as
Europe mourned the assassinated president, and concurrent with Fedi’s famous
marble sculpture, Pirro che rapisce Polissena. Verso signed “Pio Fedi faceva in
Firenza nel – 1865.” A rather unique three-dimensional representation of
Lincoln, as Volk’s life mask is usually the piece we see reproduced today.
An extremely rare European Lincoln sculpture.
Condition Report: Excellent
Size: 29 in. high with base (73.7 cm.)
Provenance: Gary Hendershott Museum Consultants
Estimate: $20,000 – 30,000
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