Giulio Monteverde

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Idealità e materialismo (1911) (detail)

Giulio Monteverde (8 October 1837–3 October 1917) was an Italian naturalist sculptor.

1 Biography
2 Principal works
3 Sources
4 External links

[edit] Biography

He was born in Bistagno, a small town to the west of Acqui Terme in the province of Alessandria, Piedmont, to Vittorio Monteverde, a labourer from Casale Monferrato, and Teresa Rondanino of Acqui. He spent his early years between Bistagno and Casale Monferrato.

His artistic career began as a woodcarver, producing numerous crucifixes and heads of angels. Examples of this early work can be seen in Acqui Terme (church of San Francesco) and Asti (church of San Secondo). After a period in Casale Monferrato in the workshop of Leonardo Bistolfi’s father, he moved to Genoa where he first worked in furniture manufacture. From 1859 he attended the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti then, in 1863 he moved to Rome, having won a scholarship to the Accademia di S. Luca.

With a growing family—he had married very young, in Casale—the initial years in Rome were a struggle against penury. But in 1867 his fortunes took a turn for the better when his sculptural group Children playing with a cat was purchased by the future William II of Württemberg; in the following years, notable for Young Columbus (1870), The genius of Franklin (1871) and especiallyJenner vaccinating his son (1873), his reputation grew steadily.

A long and successful career ensued during which he was much in demand for large scale celebratory and funerary monuments, in both Europe and the Americas, as well as for more modest portrait busts.

He died in Rome, five days short of his eightieth birthday.

[edit] Principal works

Bambini che giocano con il gatto (Children playing with a cat), (1867)
Monument to Raffaele Pratolongo, (1868) – Genoa, Staglieno cemetery
Colombo giovinetto (The boy Columbus) (1870)
Genio di Franklin (Franklin’s genius) (1871)
Jenner colto nell'atto di inoculare il vaccino del vaiolo al proprio figlio (Jenner caught in the act of vaccinating his own son against smallpox) (1873) – Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini (1879) – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cristo morto (Christ dead') (1880) – Buenos Aires, Recoleta Cemetery, Argentina
Monument to Francesco Oneto (1882) – Genoa, Staglieno cemetery
Tomba Celle (Cell tomb) (1893) – Genoa, Staglieno cemetery
Idealità e materialismo (Idealism and materialism) (1911) – Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Il pensiero (The thought) – Rome, Vittoriano