In December 2024, the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze purchased, from the antiques market Galleria d’Arte Carlo Virgilio in Rome, a terracotta sculpture depicting Venus entering the sea, a work by the sculptor Luigi Pampaloni (Florence, 1791-1847).

The sculpture, approximately 38 cm tall, is the preparatory sketch for the marble statue commissioned from the Florentine artist by the American magnate Meredith Calhoun around 1836.

In addition to the preparatory sketch, the plaster model of the work is also preserved in Florence (Accademia di Belle Arti), while the marble sculpture, which was exhibited at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in September 1838 and then transferred to America between 1838 and 1842, has been lost since the early 20th century.

The purchase of the preparatory sketch thus became an opportunity for study and research, which led to the tracing, in a private English collection, of a marble replica of the work, which is not the one commissioned by Calhoun and now lost, but rather a smaller version (112.5 cm) that Luigi Pampaloni created for Count Fabio Orlandini in those years (around 1838-1845).

The fortunate coincidence, which saw the simultaneous recovery of the initial and final phases of Pampaloni’s work, has provided the opportunity to stage this small exhibition. It aims to present the new acquisition of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze and Musei del Bargello (the preparatory terracotta model) but also to demonstrate a new and significant comparison between the various versions of the work (terracotta, plaster, and marble). In this way, it is possible to reconstruct, through the sculptures themselves, the entire creative and artistic process and trace the sculptor’s work from the first idea captured in clay (later fired and transformed into the terracotta model) to the final marble work, passing through the plaster model.

After the exhibition, the preparatory terracotta model will be permanently displayed in the Gipsoteca of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, which, in addition to numerous plaster casts by Lorenzo Bartolini—Pampaloni’s friend and teacher—also houses several plaster models by the Florentine sculptor.