Marcello (sculptor)

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Édouard-Théophile Blanchard : Marcello (1877), Museum of Art and History Freiburg

Marcello (actually Adèle d'Affry ; born July 6, 1836 in Friborg , Switzerland ; † July 14, 1879 in Castellammare di Stabia , Naples ) was a Swiss painter and sculptor.

Marcello: Pythia ( Paris Opera )

life and work

Adélaïde Nathalie Marie Hedwige Philippine d'Affry came from the Friborg patrician family d'Affry . She was the eldest daughter of Count Louis d'Affry (1810-1841) and Lucie de Maillardoz (1816-1897), daughter of the Marquis Philippe de Maillardoz. The male members of the d'Affry family traditionally pursued military careers. Adèle's great-grandfather Louis d'Affry (1743-1810) was the first Landammann of Switzerland.

Her father Louis d'Affry died on June 26, 1841. Adèle and her sister Cécile were raised by their mother alone. From 1853 to 1854, Adèle received classical training for girls of her class. This also included the lessons in drawing and watercolor, which the painter Joseph Auguste Dietrich (1821–1863) gave her. In Rome in 1853/54 Adèle first attended the modeling courses of the Swiss sculptor Heinrich Max Imhof (1795–1869). At the age of 20 she married Carlo Colonna, Duke of Castiglione. This died after 9 months. Adèle had to travel to Rome in 1857 to settle differences with the Colonna family regarding their inheritance and pension. She lived in the monastery of the Dames du Sacré-Coeur in Santa Trinità dei Monti . During this time she resumed modeling in Imhof's studio, visited numerous churches and admired the works of antiquity and Michelangelo ; in autumn she modeled the bust of her deceased husband and shortly afterwards a self-portrait. In 1859 Adèle went to Paris and rented an apartment from Léon Riesener (1808–1878), a cousin of Eugène Delacroix . The Duchess began to associate with Second Empire society . Thanks to her high standing, Adèle was often a guest in the legitimist salons of the Faubourg Saint-Germain , preferably in the salon of the Countess von Circourt. In 1860 Adèle worked on her first large sculpture, The beautiful Helena . She studied animal drawing at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle under the guidance of the sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye (1795–1875). She conducted studies based on nature and antiquity without neglecting the more technical and exhausting aspects of sculpture. Jean-Baptiste Auguste Clésinger (1814–1883) monitored her progress. From December onwards she attended the anatomy courses of Professor Sappey in the basement of the École pratique de médecine with all discretion. On September 6, 1860, she met the painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) while having dinner at the barber's. The first symptoms of the breast disease to which she will succumb began to make themselves felt.

Her request to study at the École des Beaux-Arts was rejected in 1861. When she returned to Rome, she admired the Ugolino and his sons group in the Villa Medici , on which Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) worked. The friendship between the two only ended with the death of the sculptor. After much hesitation, Adèle decided in 1863 to exhibit for the first time in the Paris Salon under the male pseudonym "Marcello". She presented three busts: Bianca Capello , the bust of Count G. de N ... [icolaÿ] and that of the Duchess of San C ... [esario] , a wax sculpture . Thanks to the great success of the Bianca , the Empress Eugénie became aware of the artist and invited her to one of the famous montages in the Tuileries . Adèle now frequented the court and met with Napoleon III. (1808–1873), for whom she harbored great admiration. Marcello exhibited the marble bust of the Gorgon in the drawing room. On August 2, 1865, she received the official commission for a bust of the Empress Eugénie , which was to be placed in the throne room of the Paris City Hall. She made four versions of this bust. In June and July of 1866, Adèle was in London to follow the reactions to the bronze bust of the Gorgon on display at the Royal Academy Exhibition . Because of her admiration for Queen Marie-Antoinette , she made the busts of Marie-Antoinette in Versailles and Marie-Antoinette in the Temple , which she showed in the Paris Salon in May. In November, her bust of the Empress was heavily criticized and rejected by the Paris Art Commission, which angered her. She thought she had fallen out of favor with Eugenie. Despite the happy outcome - the Prefect Haussmann accepted the bust - this affair caused her a persistent disaffection.

Marcello presented eight sculptures in the Papal States department of the Paris World's Fair in 1867 , including Hecate , the Emperor Napoleon III. for the gardens of Compiègne Castle . Accompanied by her mother, she traveled through Austria, Germany and Hungary in May and June. In Budapest the two took part in the coronation of Empress Elisabeth (1837–1898). Returning to Paris, Marcello made a small bust of the Empress Sissi. From March to August 1868, the Duchess toured Northern Italy and stopped in Rome. She spent a spa stay in Cauterets in the Pyrenees and from there traveled to Spain , where she got caught up in an uprising . Despite the dangerous situation, she stayed in Madrid and worked there in the company of her friends, the painters Henri Regnault (1843–1871) and Georges Clairin (1843–1919). She met the revolutionary General Milans del Bosch y Mauri, whose bust she modeled. Thanks to the letters of recommendation from Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), the doors of the Museo del Prado opened to her . There she admired the works of Diego Velázquez, among others .

Gustave Courbet : Marcello, 1870

She returned to Rome in 1869 and sent the bust of the Tired Bacchante to the Paris Salon. In her Papa Giulio's studio, she created her masterpiece, the Pythia , which Charles Garnier (1825–1898) acquired to decorate his new opera house in Paris. While the execution of her sculpture caused her numerous technical difficulties, she dreamed of giving up sculpture with its material constraints in order to devote herself to painting. Under the direction of Ernest Hébert (1817–1908) she studied drawing in the Villa Medici and shared her enthusiasm for music with the composers Charles Gounod (1818–1893) and Franz Liszt (1811–1886). She also painted in the studio of the painter Mariano Fortuny i Marsal (1838–1874), where she met Eduardo Rosales (1836–1873). Marcello presented the Pythia in bronze and the bust of the Abyssinian chief in the Paris Salon of 1870. She stayed in Switzerland during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune . Tired of the exhaustion caused by the practice of sculpture and the illness, she went on to study painting in the studio of the painter Alfred van Muyden in Geneva. Adèle stayed again in Paris in 1872, where she continued her painting studies under the direction of Léon Bonnat . With the death of Napoleon III. Deeply hit, the Duchess went to Chislehurst in England in 1873 to express her condolences to the Empress Eugénie and her son. Marcello considered sending the portrait of Madame de Tallenay to the salon for her debut as a painter , but finally decided not to. Her five busts presented at the Vienna World Exhibition - the Abyssinian chief , Bianca Capello , the two Marie-Antoinette and Pythia - were awarded a medal.

The large painting she sent to the salon, The Fiesco Conspiracy , was rejected by the jury, a decision that deeply hurt her.

In 1875 the Duchess painted the portrait of Berthe Morisot , with whom she shared the difficulties of an existence as an artist. Fearing that she would be compromised by the establishment, she refused to be portrayed by Édouard Manet . In contrast, she stood as a model for her painter friend Édouard Blanchard (1844–1879) and had herself portrayed by Gustave Courbet in 1870 . In the salon in 1875 she presented Redemptor mundi , Phoebé and The Beautiful Roman Woman . At the opening of the new Paris Opera on January 5th, the Pythia was well received by the public and critics. From Freiburg, where she had lived since January 1876, Marcello undertook another trip to Italy, which took her to Florence, Orvieto, Rome, Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Padua, Venice, Verona and Milan. The director of the Galleria degli Uffizi asked her to paint his portrait. Her bust of the Baroness von Keffenbrinck , which she showed in the salon, earned her only an honorable mention, which she noted with bitterness. Weakened by a cough and joint pain, Adèle sought refuge in the sunny south of France and spent December 1877 on the advice of her doctors in Italy.

The Duchess traveled ceaselessly between Naples, Switzerland and Paris in search of a climate that could stop her coughing up blood . A second version of her will, dated January 2, 1878, listed the sculptures she bequeathed to the State of Freiburg on condition that a museum be set up for her works. In Castellammare, Marcello sorted her papers, wrote her memoirs, which remained unfinished, and drew ceaselessly. On July 16, 1879, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 44 . She was buried in the Givisiez cemetery.

Her legacy was managed by the Marcello Foundation, which donated the works of art in her possession to the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Friborg .

Exhibitions and salons during his lifetime

  • 1863: Salon , Paris.
  • 1864: Exhibition in Paris.
  • 1865: The Royal Academy Exhibition, London.
  • 1866: Salon , Paris; Exhibition of Fine Arts, Lille.
  • 1867: Exhibition at the Cercle de l'Union artistique (March); The Royal Academy Exhibition; World Exhibition in Paris.
  • 1869: Salon (May 1st), Paris; Exposition Internationale des Beaux-Arts (20 June - 31 October), Munich.
  • 1870: Salon (May 1st), Paris, Palais des Champs-Élysées.
  • 1873: Exhibition at Durand-Ruel (March 1st), Paris; World exhibition in Vienna.
  • 1874: Salon , Paris.
  • 1875: Salon , Paris, Palais des Champs-Élysées.
  • 1876: Salon , Paris, Palais des Champs-Élysées.
  • 1877: Exhibition at the Cercle artistique , Nice, palais Christine.

Works in public collections

Sculptures

  • The Pythia , model after 1880, bronze, Museum for Art and History Freiburg
  • The Rosina , 1869, terracotta, Freiburg Museum of Art and History
  • Ananke , 1866, marble, Freiburg Museum of Art and History
  • The exhausted bacchante , 1868, marble, Museum for Art and History Freiburg
  • The Gorgo , 1865, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Bianca Capello , 1863, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Marie-Antoinette as Crown Princess , 1866, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Marie-Antoinette in the Paris Temple Prison , 1866, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Goethes Gretchen , 1866, marble, Marcello Foundation, deposited in the Museum for Art and History Freiburg
  • The beautiful Roman woman , 1866, marble, Freiburg Museum of Art and History
  • Portrait of General Milan del Bosc , 1868, plaster, Marcello Foundation, deposited in the Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Abyssinian Prince , 1870, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Phoebé , 1875, marble, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux , 1875, bronze, Museum of Art and History Freiburg
  • Ecce Homo , 1877, marble, Freiburg Museum of Art and History

painting

  • Portrait of Madame de Tallenay , 1873, oil on canvas, Freiburg Museum of Art and History
  • Portrait of Berthe Morisot , 1875, oil on canvas, Museum for Art and History Freiburg
  • Fish seller in Naples , undated, oil on canvas, Museum of Art and History Freiburg

literature

  • Comtesse d'Alcantara: Marcello. Adèle d'Affry, duchesse Castiglione Colonna 1836–1879. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée et ses amis. Genève: Editions Générales, 1961
  • Henriette Bessis: Marcello. In: Sikart 1998
  • Marianne Rolle / AHB: Marcello. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2008
  • Marcello, Adèle d'Affry (1836–1879), Duchess of Castiglione Colonna , Gianna A. Mina (ed.), Exhibition catalog (Freiburg, MAHF, November 7, 2014 - February 22, 2015; Ligornetto, Museo Vela, April 26 - 30 August 2015; Musées nationaux du Palais de Compiègne, 16 October 2015 - 1 February 2016; Pregny-Genève, Musée des Suisses dans le monde, February - June 2016), Edition 5 Continents (publisher), Milano, 2014

Web links

Commons : Adèle d'Affry  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tatiana Silvestri, «Biography», in Marcello, Adèle d'Affry (1836-1879), Duchess of Castiglione Colonna , Gianna A. Mina (ed.), Exhibition catalog (Freiburg, MAHF, November 7, 2014 - February 22, 2015 ; Ligornetto, Museo Vela, April 26 - August 30, 2015; Musées nationaux du Palais de Compiègne, October 16, 2015 - February 1, 2016; Pregny-Genève, Musée des Suisses dans le monde, February - June 2016), edition 5 Continents (publisher), Milano, 2014, pp. 115–119
  2. ^ Robert Savary: Adèle “Marcello” de Castiglione Colonna d'Affry. In: Find a Grave . January 30, 2016, accessed October 23, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Marcello
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Affry, Adèle d '(real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiburg in Üechtland
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1879
Place of death Castellammare di Stabia