Restoring an Artist to History

A signature on an alabaster portrait of George Washington.

An archival record.

A letter to Bertel Thorvaldsen.

Restoring Giuseppe Spedolo

to history.

A Signed Rediscovery

This finely carved alabaster bust of General George Washington bears on its reverse the inscription GIVSEPPE SPEDOLO F.

The signature securely identifies its author as Giuseppe Spedolo, a little-known sculptor whose life and work remain almost entirely obscure to this day: neither his dates nor his places of birth and death are known, and his oeuvre is still virtually unknown.

The rediscovery of this bust therefore provides a new and firmly documented point of departure for reconstructing his career.
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The Puccini Archives: A Date, a Patron, a Clue

The archives of the noble Puccini family in Pistoia record that Giuseppe Puccini (1745-1818) commissioned from Spedolo an alabaster portrait of Washington. This record also allows the work to be dated between July 1816 and June 1817. The same archival notes refer to the artist as Spedolo the Venetian sculptor - a crucial clue to his origins and possibly to his artistic formation.

Signature, patron and date thus converge around a single object, creating a secure landmark in Spedolo's career.
Why Washington as a General?

The choice of subject is revealing.

As indicated by the inscription on the front of our sculpture, George Washington is identified as General rather than President Of the United States of America, and thus celebrated as the hero of American independence and as an emblem in Europe of liberty, independence and civic virtue.

Within the Puccini family, libertarian ideas appear to have formed a deeply shared ethos. Their admiration for General George Washington was equally strong: in the family palace at Scornio, Niccolò, also inspired by his father’s beliefs, chose to celebrate Washington in a room decorated with a ceiling allegory of the General crowned by America.
The Puccini Circle and Context
politics, art, civic & social engagement

The commission emerged from a family deeply engaged with art, culture and philanthropy.

Giuseppe Puccini was the brother of Tommaso Puccini (1749-1811), Prefect of the Florentine Galleries and Museums, and father of Niccolò Puccini (1799-1852), later a prominent liberal intellectual and philanthropist.

Washington's portrait thus belongs to a milieu in which collecting, civic culture and intellectual curiosity were closely intertwined.
Why Alabaster, Not Marble?

The choice of alabaster is itself significant. In Tuscany, where Volterra had long been celebrated for its alabaster, the material offered a fine grain and luminous surface ideally suited to the intimate scale of the bust.

It allowed Spedolo to render Washington's features and military dress with great delicacy, while giving the portrait a more private and contemplative character than monumental Carrara marble.
Reconstructing an Image of Washington

Spedolo's portrait is strikingly specific in both physiognomy and military dress.

What image of General Washington, then, did he know?

Washington's likeness had already circulated widely in Europe through engraved portraits, many presenting him specifically as General and in military dress.

Spedolo may have drawn upon one of these graphic prototypes translating a widely disseminated two-dimensional image into sculpture.

The quality of the work is of the very highest standard, a testament to the artist's technical mastery and apparent distinction as a portrait sculptor.

* From the printing by John Cheesman & Antonio C. de Poggi, London, 1796. One of the many engraved portraits that contributed to the circulation of Washington’s military image in Europe.
Six Years Later: Florence: Thorvaldsen
Spedolo in His Own Words

The Washington bust securely fixes Spedolo's activity in 1816-17.

By 1822 he was working at the Villa del Poggio Imperiale alongside the young Luigi Pampaloni, with whom he executed two bas-reliefs, Spring and Summer, for the villa's piano nobile.

A year later, in 1823, Spedolo wrote to Bertel Thorvaldsen offering his services.

In one of two surviving letters, dated 12 August 1823, he presented himself as a Professor of Sculpture and member of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

He referred to works at the Villa del Poggio Imperiale, Palazzo Pitti and for private patrons, revealing an artist far more integrated into the artistic life of Grand Ducal Florence than his near-total obscurity today might suggest.
His approach to Bertel Thorvaldsen also places him within the wider international world of Neoclassical sculpture.

One may also wonder whether Spedolo, described as "Venetian" in Puccini's annotations, might have had some connection - even indirectly or during his formative years - with Antonio Canova, the other great protagonist of contemporary sculpture, who died in October 1822.

No such connection is presently documented, but the possibility remains an intriguing line of enquiry.
Restoring an Artist to History

The importance of the Washington bust lies in the convergence of all these elements.

A signature, an archival record, a precisely dated commission, a clue to the sculptor's Venetian background.

The later correspondence with Bertel Thorvaldsen reveals Giuseppe Spedolo's

academic standing and professional ambitions.

The Washington bust does not complete his biography,

but provides a new and far firmer point of departure for its reconstruction.

This object has begun to restore an artist to history.