Author
Alceo Dossena
Biography
(Cremona 1878 - Rome 1937)
Date
Early 20th century
Technique
Marble
Size
Height 128 cm
Audioguide
Description:
The story of this sculpture is intertwined with the vicissitudes of a fantastic abbey unearthed on Mount Amiata (GR): here two Roman antiquarians, Alfredo Fasoli and Alfredo Pallesi, in the 1920s allegedly recovered some works found among the ruins of a monastery destroyed in an earthquake in the 18th century, which held some treasures donated by the Sienese archbishop Enea Piccolomini.
In fact, the statues in question were commissioned by two antiquarians from sculptor Alceo Dossena, who claimed to have supplied them from 1918 to 1928 with many works destined for the American antiques market.
Dossena defended himself by declaring that he never worked with the intention of fraud, but that he wanted to recreate original works of art but in the "antique style".
Undoubtedly, the work in the Luzzetti collection represents a splendid example of Dossena forging with stylistic affinities to a Maestà now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Siena. Dossena here depicts the Saint with the distinctive attribute of the wheel and the dress punctuated by soft, flattened folds as she holds up the flap of her cloak with her hand.
Before her bows the patron holding a pyx in his hand, dressed in an ample cloak and coiffed according to fourteenth-century fashion.