Enrico PAZZI (1819 1899)
Presumed full-length portrait of Giulio Rasponi as a child, playing with his dog
Large Carrara marble statue, signed, located and dated "E. Pazzi scolpis Firenze 1873".
On a pedestal, walnut sheath with turntable, monogrammed LR (?) under a count's crown.
(Very small chip at the end of the shoe).
Height: 127 cm - Height of the base: 104 cm
Total height: 231 cm

Born in Ravenna where he was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, Enrico Pazzi participated in most of the Italian Salons. He moved to Florence in 1853 where he died in 1899. His fame came from the monument erected in 1865 in piazza Santa Croce to the glory of Dante. In addition to this, Pazzi sculpted the statue of Savonarola in 1872, also in Florence, the equestrian monument of Prince
Michael Obrenovic III in Belgrade in 1882 and numerous portraits. He was rather specialized in large statuary.
A replica of this statue, signed and dated 1881, was on the English art market from the former collection of Major James de Sales la Terrière (his auction of the contents of Dunalastair Castle in Perthshire in May 1954), then sold at Cheffins Auction House in Cambridge on 19 June 2014.

Provenance: According
to family tradition: Imperial

Family:
Giulio Rasponi (1863-1916) was the great-grand-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
He was in fact the son of Gioacchino Rasponi (husband of Constance Ghika), the grandson of Louise Murat (wife of Giulio Rasponi), and the great-grandson of Napoleon's sister Caroline Bonaparte (wife of Joachim Murat).
This statue representing the 10-year-old Guilio Rasponi was probably commissioned in 1873 by his parents to E. Pazzi who was a close friend. It was given some time later to his mother's sister, Princess Alexandrine Ghika who was his godmother. We can think that Pazzi then made a replica of it which is the one, dated 1881, which is in Great Britain.
Then by direct descent of Princess Alexandrine Ghika.

There is an obvious kinship between this statue and that of Carpeaux representing the Imperial Prince with his dog Nero, whose marble, preserved in the Musée d'Orsay (RF 2042) is dated 1865. The latter having been an immense success, it was cast in bronze, porcelain and terracotta in numerous copies, which leads us to believe that Pazzi surely saw it and was inspired by it. One can also imagine that it was the patron himself, a cousin of the Imperial Prince, who suggested this pose.