Bust Of A Young Woman, Carrara Marble, Italy—First half of the 19th Century

This marble bust, sculpted in the round, depicts a young woman with rounded shoulders, her head turned to the right. Her full, youthful face, with its perfect symmetry, is framed by a profuse head of hair. The heavy, wavy locks, divided into two side braids, cascade down her neck. A crown of hair adorns the top of her head, while a twisted bun completes the elegant hairstyle of this sculpture.
This work clearly echoes the finest traditions of classical Greco-Roman sculpture, which, from the mid-18th century onward, was regarded as the standard of ideal beauty. The start of archaeological excavations and the discovery of the paintings at Pompeii, along with the work of art historians such as Winckelmann (1717–1768), contributed to this renaissance of the “ideal of beauty.” Painters, sculptors, and architects then adopted the ancient canon as the pinnacle of art. The zenith of this aesthetic in sculpture was likely reached by Antonio Canova (1757–1822), who definitively incorporated the proportions and form of Greco-Roman sculpture and transposed them into contemporary subjects.
Our bust, with its formal perfection, is not a mere copy of an ancient model, of which the 19th century was so fond. It corresponds in every point to the type of inspired works created in Italy between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which incorporate—without copying—the lessons of antiquity.