The New Display of the Collection of Plaster Casts by Lorenzo Bartolini and Luigi Pampaloni

Location:
Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze

The temporary closure of Gipsoteca of the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze for major structural and systems work made it necessary to move the sculptures normally displayed there to other rooms in the museum, which is currently lacking storage space.

Some of the busts by Bartolini are now in the Galleria dei Prigioni, while preparatory models for marble statues sculpted by Bartolini and Pampaloni have been moved to the sides of the apse. The series of female busts in the Galleria dei Prigioni is distinguished for the figures’ mostly French-inspired hairstyles. During the Revolution, the most daring women cut their hair, on the model of the ancient Romans. After the proclamation of the Empire of Napoleon, it became popular to frame the face with
carefully shaped, symmetrical curls. In 1827, the fashion shifted back to fantastical styles, created using hairpieces and special structures to achieve unexpected height and forms. After 1837, women’s hair lost its volume and simple braids knotted at the nape of the neck were preferred.

The museum’s temporary exhibition galleries host a group of busts that tell the story of Florence in the age of Lorenzo Bartolini, when it was a cosmopolitan city and chosen residence of numerous foreigners.
In the Department of Musical Instruments we find three further series of busts by Lorenzo Bartolini: anonymous figures portrayed from life in the artist’s studio in Borgo San Frediano; artists, men-of-letters, scholars, members of the Bartolini family and various notables; portraits of singers, actors, playwrights and dancers, including a plaster bust of the tragedian and man-of-letters Giovanni Battista Niccolini, displayed alongside the marble version.