One of the finest carvers of nineteenth century Florence, Pio Fedi, came to flourish under the instruction of Romanticist Lorenzo Bartolini and Neo-Classicist Pietro Tenerani. Pio Fedi's works do not command with overpowering force, but rather unfold with a naturalness of form. Fedi went on to create a statue of Andrea Cesalpino for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a bronze monument of General Manfrede Fanti in the plaza of Santa Croce and executed the grand allegorical Statue of Liberty which was a tribute to the poet Giovanni Battista Nicolini. Fedi died in Florence in 1892, leaving a great body of his work as public treasures.
Pio Fedi's works like Il Genio Della Pesca do not command with overpowering force; rather they unfold with a naturalness of form. Il Genio Della Pesca, which essentially translates as The Supreme Fisher Boy, is the elevation of what is an everyday task to a celebration of a boy who elegantly rides the back of a dolphin, while netting the riches of the sea. The beauty and genius of the piece is in the gentle expression of the face, the effortless stance of the figure, the heavy weight of the nets and the defiance of the truth that it is carved from stone with implements instead of modeled from a more supple medium. The condition is remarkably good with every intricate detail, like the seashells in his hair, perfectly intact. This piece was completed in 1864 right in the height of his career as Fedi’s greatest monument, The Rape of the Polyxena was inaugurated in 1866 in the Loggia dei Lanzi between Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus and Giambologna's Rape of the Sabines. But our ‘genie of the deep’ could hardly be of greater contrast in spirit, a beguiling and exuberant rococo figure.
The Rape of Polyxena is counted in a group of eight works considered to be small monuments. Fedi’s training had been with two of Italy’s great marble masters, first Lorenzo Bartolini in Florence, and subsequently Pietro Tenerani in Rome. The influences of both can be seen in Fedi’s combination of robust naturalism, which stemmed from Bartolini, suffused with the neo-classical vocabulary of Tenerani. Fedi went on to create a statue of Andrea Cesalpino for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a bronze monument of General Manfrede Fanti in the plaza of Santa Croce and executed the grand allegorical Statue of Liberty which was a tribute to the poet Giovanni Battista Nicolini. Fedi died in Florence in 1892, leaving a great body of his work as public treasures.
Private Collection, England
Private Collection, Burbank, CA