Luigi Simonetti – Pair of medallion portraits

Luigi Simonetti

(known of from 1823 to 1871)

Pair of medallion portraits

circa 1835

Two roundels in terracotta, ⌀ 13.5 cm

Both signed: “L. Simonetti F.”

Provenance: Rome, private collection

Simonetti depicts the intense portraits of this young pair in silent dialogue in terracotta, employing a highly defined approach in the faces and brief chromatic rendering of the hairstyles. Sculptor of classicism and Roman purism, the artist is known for funerary monuments that still exist today and for a series of statues of his own invention, of classical or genre subject, until now only known about from literary sources.