Portrait of Gaetano Gandolfi

Giacomo De Maria (1760 -1838)
1802, Polychrome plaster

This solemn portrait of the artist Gaetano Gandolfi is a fine antique bust in a highly erudite style, showing elegant composure. After attending Antonio Canova's studio, Giacomo De Maria became one of the leading exponents of neoclassical culture in the city of Bologna. The work was attributed to Ubaldo Gandolfi in the great Bolognese exhibition of 1935, but a later attribution to De Maria was made due to the lack of pictorial vigour typical of Ubaldo's works that translated into a late Baroque language of extraordinary vitality. Instead, it more closely resembles other antiquarian portraits by De Maria, a key cultural figure at a time of transition from the ancien régime to the new order. Giacomo De Maria was also president of the Accademia di Belle Arti, which came into being after the closure of the Accademia Clementina, which had been directed by Gandolfi.