artwork image
Image courtesy of the Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania

Portrait of Antonio Smareglia (Ritratto di Antonio Smareglia)

Year:

1886-1888

Dimensions (cm):

28.5 x 23 x 22

Dimensions (inches):

11.22 x 9.06 x 8.66

Medium:

Sculptures

Material:

Plaster, with a yellow patina

Current location:

Verbania Pallanza, Museo del Paesaggio: inv T. n. 273

Description Provenance Exhibitions Bibliography

The subject of the plaster is Antonio Smareglia (Pola, 1854 – Grado, 1929) a prominent musician of the Scapigliatura season. Giolli reports in 1913 that Troubetzkoy had gifted Smareglia with a small bust. Subsequently, Smareglia asked Troubetzkoy to create more copies of the bust, in order to gift them to friends. Smareglia then ordered a foundry to produce 200 copies of the bust. These were never given to friends but to creditors, as the copies of the work were enough to pay the debts. Giolli (1913) states that a few shoemakers and tailors smashed the bust to the floor and others hung the sculpture by the neck in their shops. Art historian Sergio Rebora (2017) states that the bust can be traced back to Troubetzkoy’s first years in Milan.

Paul Troubetzkoy (1866-1938), Italy, until 1938;
By descent to the heirs, Rhoda Muriel Marie Somerwell and Luigi Troubetzkoy;
Donated to the Museo del Paesaggio, 1938-1939

Paolo Troubetzkoy 1866-1938, Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania, 1990.

R. Giolli, Paul Troubetzkoy, Milan, 1913, pp.12-13;
S. Rebora, Paolo Troubetzkoy 1866-1938, exh. cat., Turin, 1990,p.78 ;
Paolo Troubetzkoy, La Collezione del Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania, 2017 p. 30.