Davide Calandra (21 October 1856 – 8 September 1915) was an Italian sculptor and

cabinet maker A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves and/or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (so ...

Biography

Davide Calandra was born in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

into a wealthy family. His father, besides his professional activities of lawyer and

hydraulic engineer Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...

, was an archaeologist and a well known collector of ancient weapons. Davide's eldest brother, the writer Edoardo Calandra, was a prominent author who wrote the novel ''La bufera'', an example of historical fiction. After attending the Liceo Calandra followed the art lectures of the

Accademia Albertina The Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti ("Albertina Academy of Fine Arts") is an institution of higher education in Turin, Italy History In the first half of the seventeenth century, there was a "University of Painters, Sculptors and Architects" ...

and then joined as a volunteer the cavalry where he attained the military rank of '' Sottotenente'' ( Sub-Lieutenant). In 1878 he worked with his father and his brother to an excavation of the Lombard archaeological site of Testona (

Moncalieri Moncalieri (; pms, Moncalé ) is a town and ''comune'' of 56,134 inhabitants (31 January 2022) about directly south of downtown Turin (to whose Metropolitan City it belongs), in Piedmont, Italy. It is the most populous suburb of Turin and it is ...

). One of Calandra's first sculptures, ''Vigils of Penelope'', was displayed in 1880 at the Turin's Exhibition of Fine Arts. At the 1884 National Exhibition in Turin, he displayed three works: ''Judah'', ''Tigre Reale'', and ''Fior di Chiostro''. Calandra Also completed many portrait busts and bas-reliefs. ''Dizionario degli Artisti Italiani Viventi: pittori, scultori, e Architetti.''
by Angelo de Gubernatis. Tipe dei Successori Le Monnier, 1889, page 84-85. In 1902, with his fellow artists

Leonardo Bistolfi Leonardo Bistolfi (14 March 1859 – 2 September 1933) was an Italian sculptor and an important exponent of Italian Symbolism. Biography Bistolfi was born in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, north-west Italy, to Giovanni Bistolfi, a sculptor in ...

, Giorgio Ceragioli, Enrico Reycend and Enrico Thovez, Calandra helped establish the journal ''L'arte decorativa moderna'', which was devoted to

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

. From 1912 he was appointed president of the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

ese Society of Archaeology and Fine Arts (''Società Piemontese di Archeologia e Belle Arti''). He died in

in 1915.On-line biography
on

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

municipality web-site (accessed in December 2009)

Selected artworks

His sculptures include a

Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, pat ...

statue in

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

and an equestrian monument of

Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, (29 January 1873 – 18 March 1933) was an Italian mountaineer and explorer, briefly Infante of Spain as son of Amadeo I of Spain, member of the royal House of Savoy and cousin of the Italian King ...

, commissioned by the city of

and located in the park of Valentino. He also completed the monument to King

Umberto II en, Albert Nicholas Thomas John Maria of Savoy , house = Savoy , father = Victor Emmanuel III of Italy , mother = Princess Elena of Montenegro , birth_date = , birth_place = Racconigi, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy , d ...

Villa Borghese Villa Borghese or Villa Borghese Pinciana ('Borghese family{{!Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill') is the villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio (and, after his death, finished by his assistant Giovanni Vasanzio), developing sketches by Scip ...

(Rome); this statue was completed after the sculptor's death. Calandra also completed a large

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

of the Argentinian politician and writer

Bartolomé Mitre Bartolomé Mitre Martínez (26 June 1821 – 19 January 1906) was an Argentine statesman, soldier and author. He was President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868 and the first president of unified Argentina. Mitre is known as the most versatile ...

; the monument is found in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. His vast artistic production also includes some Italian coins made between 1908 and 1916 during the rule of

Victor Emmanuel III of Italy Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. He also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–1941) and K ...

.Web-site on italian coins
(accessed in December 2009) The municipal museum ''Antonino Olmo'' of

Savigliano Savigliano (Savijan in Piedmontese) is a ''comune'' of Piedmont, northern Italy, in the Province of Cuneo, about south of Turin by rail. It is home to ironworks, foundries, locomotive works (once owned by Fiat Ferroviaria, now by Alstom) and s ...

houses the ''Gipsoteca Davide Calandra'' which shows several of his

plasterwork Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster Molding (decorative), decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called parge ...

References

*The initial version of this article was based on a translation o
its equivalent
on the

Italian Wikipedia The Italian Wikipedia ( it, Wikipedia in italiano) is the Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on May 11, 2001 and first edited on June 11, 2001. As of , , it has articles and more than registered accounts. It is th ...

, as retrieved on 2009-12-24.

Biography

Selected artworks

References

Further reading