Orpheus Singing

For this model Andreotti was incited by Marcello Piacentini‘s request for a work to be placed in the Mausoleum that he had designed for Count Arturo B. Ottolenghi and his wife Herta De Wedekind in Acqui Terme. But while proposing the work, Piacentini also suggested the theme, as in a letter to Andreotti of July 28, 1930: “a group to be carved in a valuable stone (basalt, granite, porphyry) ‘expressing’ the fight of a man with a lion, the struggle of the spirit against the brute force”. Andreotti didn’t like the suggested theme, since on the contrary, in Orpheus’s song he saw the victory of the spirit which he wanted to highlight”. Anyway the artpiece, both in this version and the previous one, never went to Acqui Terme: there was no room for sculpture groups in that Mausoleum, even if, at first, the Ottolenghi couple had thought of placing there the Affrico and Mensola group.

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1930-31
Author: Libero Andreotti