Description
Venetian sculptor (18th century) — Group of four popular figures.
Full figures in carved, lacquered and painted wood.
The four statuettes depict popular Venetian characters in full figure: three men and a woman, caught in lively, everyday poses and dressed in typical late 18th-century attire. The male figures, wearing coats, breeches and tricorn hats, originally carried work tools or hunting rifles, now lost; the female figure holds a bouquet of flowers. The carving, fluid and narrative in execution, belongs to the Venetian tradition of display or crèche figures produced for bourgeois and aristocratic interiors during the 18th century. The group offers a vivid record of popular costume and a noteworthy example of Venetian genre wood sculpture.
Condition report: Generally good state of conservation, with signs of ageing and wear to the polychromy. Original tools or attributes missing from the male figures.
