Marquise Ada Nicolini

This art piece of 1915-16 was commented in Giovanni Costetti’s article on Andreotti in “La Tempra” November 10, 1916. It was realized in Florence, when the sculptor was in contact with Ugo Ojetti, who in 1920 will give an interpretation of his works between modernity and neo-tradition, whose cultural terms (fifteenth-century and Cézanne movements) are already to be found in this portrait. The noble and educated Ada Niccolini turns her head leftwards, with her arms posing like Donatello’s marble David, while the ample gown is a plastic meditation on Cézanne’s deconstruction of planes. Therefore “the architectural weight of the masses is rendered, as in Bourdelle through proportions, in a non-academic function, but in an expressive one”. In the final model the figure is posing in front of the spectator and is “held up with an almost smiling face above a ‘historical’ memory which had really become necessary lexicon” (Monti, 1976).

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1915-16
Author: Libero Andreotti