A Famous and Important Early 20th Century Italian Bronze Fountain of a Woman with Amphora – (Amphoras Fountain) By Amleto Cataldi

A Famous and Important Early 20th Century Italian Bronze Fountain of a Woman with Amphora – (Amphoras Fountain)

By Amleto Cataldi

This is the same exact model that is in the Casada Valadier, Pincio Gardens, Rome

Amleto Cataldi (1882 – 1930)

Cataldi was one of the most celebrated sculptors of his generation. A rare artist, his marbles seldom come up at auction. Born in Naples, Cataldi trained in Rome, where he rejected the Neapolitan sculptural tradition epitomised by Vincenzo Gemito's compositions in bronze, in favour of a purer classicism, which lent itself better to marble. His later career was occupied with exhibitions and continual commissions for monuments and portrait busts of Roman nobility. Today his legacy is principally left in Rome in sculptures such as Woman with amphora in the Pincio Garden, Victory on the Victor Emanuel Bridge, the memorial to the Guardia della Finanza who died in World War I in Viale XXI Aprile, as well his Portatrice d'Acqua in the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna.

Cataldi’s style was inspired by the antique: the classical mastery of beauty and idealised form were integral to his working principles. He developed a particular interest in the nude female form and incorporated into his compositions the classical ideals of balance and harmony. The present female nude simultaneously recalls several antique figures in contrapposto, notably the Mercury in the Uffizi, The Marble Faun in the Capitoline Museums, and the Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican. The figure epitomises balletic poise as she places her weight on her proper right leg, whilst swinging the other in front, her right arm outstretched, and her left hand, which holds flowers, drawn up towards the shoulder. This ability to create poise and balance was what distinguished Cataldi as a master of movement and the human form in the first decades of the 20th century, and led Auguste Rodin to laud his art as 'a living expression always combined with rhythmic harmony'.

Where Cataldi innovated most successfully was in his integration of modern and decorative idioms in to the classical tenet. He was increasingly inclined towards stylish forms, where balletic nudes tested the boundaries of balance, and compositions were stronger and more intense than their classical predecessors. Cataldi's ability to imbue his nudes with graceful movement, counterbalanced by a modernist approach to the human body, is seen equally in the only other significant marble by the sculptor to have been offered on the art market in recent decades, his Medusa.
Details:

Height – 50 inches / 127cm
Width – 40 inches / 102cm
Maker – Amleto Cataldi