Raffaelle monti biography of rory

20/06/2019     Go-Auction Admin     General News, Latest News

Raffaelle Monti: Italian sculptor, political exile and master of illusion

Pictured above: The marble group by Raffaelle Monti, 'The Sleep of Sorrow and the Dream of Joy' (stereoscopic photograph by The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd, London, 1862)

Raffaelle Monti (1818-1881, the  the son of the sculptor Gaetano Matteo Monti (1776-1847) of Ravenna and Milan, was something of a prodigy.

In his late teens, when he was studying under his father and the sculptor Pompeo Marchesi (1790-1858), a former pupil of Canova, at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan, he won several prizes including the Great Gold Medal for his group, 'Alexander Taming Bucephalus.' In 1838, having completed another colossal project, 'Ajax defending the body of Patroculus,' he was invited to go to Vienna to produce vario