Ernesto Biondi (January 30, 1855 – 1917) was an Italian sculptor who won the ''grand prix'' at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1905 he sued the New York

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

for

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...

after they refused to display his ''Saturnalia''. The

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

ruled against him, stating that the museum director did not have the authority to initiate contracts without a vote from the board of trustees. Biondi preferred to work with

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

and often explored themes from

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

or the Middle East.

Biography

Biondi was born January 30, 1855, in

Morolo Morolo (locally ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about southeast of Rome and about west of Frosinone. Morolo borders the following municipalities: Ferentino, Gorga, Sgurgola, Sup ...

, near

Frosinone Frosinone (, local dialect: ) is a town and ''comune'' in Lazio, central Italy, the administrative seat of the province of Frosinone. It is located about south-east of Rome close to the Rome-Naples A1 Motorway. The city is the main city of the Va ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. He studied at Rome's

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...

under Girolamo Masini. He first came to wide recognition in 1883, when one of his sculptures was exhibited at a national exposition in Rome.Willard (1900), p. 593. At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair thirteen of his works were displayed.Willard (1900), p. 594. He won the ''grand prix'' at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in

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for a sculpture that "commemorate the triumph of health over disease" in Cisterna, Italy.Sallares (2002), p. 234. Biondi also won a competition to design a work for the

Republic of Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

to honor

Manuel Montt Manuel Francisco Antonio Julián Montt Torres (; September 4, 1809 – September 21, 1880) was a Chilean statesman and scholar. He was twice elected President of Chile between 1851 and 1861. Biography Montt was born in Petorca, Valparaíso R ...

and Antonio Varas. In her book ''The Italy of the Italians'',

Helen Zimmern Helen Zimmern (25 March 1846 – 11 January 1934) was a naturalised British writer and translator born in Germany. She was instrumental in making European culture more accessible in English. Biography Zimmern and her parents emigrated in 1850 t ...

, describes the work as depicting "two statesmen hoare raised on high upon a quadrangular base of bronze, one sitting, and one standing. ... The life work and merits of the two legislators is expressed allegorically around a magnificent base rich in symbolic figures".

''Saturnalia''

At the 1900 Paris exposition, Biondi also displayed his ''Saturnalia'', which depicted 10 life-size figures. Each figure represented a different social class in Rome, from the gladiators and slaves to the

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

s. All of the figures had an air of decadence. Many critics did not like the work.

Lorado Taft Lorado Zadok Taft (April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois – October 30, 1936, in Chicago) was an American sculptor, writer and educator. His 1903 book, ''The History of American Sculpture,'' was the first survey of the subject and stood for decad ...

, the preeminent American sculpture critic of his day, said the sculpture "epitomized cruelly. but not unjustly, the trend of contemporary sculpture in Italy, with all its misplaced effort and its incredible, if not to say fiendish, dexterity."Taft However, Zimmern commented that "objections may be raised to it on the score of technique, but its cleverness is indisputable. ... The central idea inculcates that in the midst of revelry the great summons may come."Zimmern (1906), p. 128. In 1905 the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

agreed to display the work for one year. It was shipped to the United States to be exhibited at the Pan-American exhibition at Buffalo and was set up at the exhibition grounds "Venice in America" in hopes for a sale. After the work did not sell, the director of the Met, General Cesnola, arranged for the work to be set up within the sculpture hall at the museum.# The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Nov., 1905), pp. 6-7 # Published by: The Metropolitan Museum of Art At a private viewing before the exhibition opened,Howard (1906), p. 138. museum trustees were appalled by the "immorality" of the work.Zimmern (1906), p. 127. and ordered it removed from display. Biondi sued the museum for $200,000 for

and for damages for the harm their actions caused his reputation. The

ruled in favor of the museum, stating that the museum director did not have the authority to enter into a binding contract without the vote of the board of trustees, and that the document Biondi thought to be a contract was actually a receipt for his work.Howard (1906), p. 139.

Later life

Biondi died in Rome in 1917.

Style

Biondi preferred to work with

instead of

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

and at one point located his studio near the Nelli Bronze Foundry in Rome so that he could more "easily superintend the process of casting".Willard (1900), p. 595. Many of his sculptures featured Middle Eastern and Asian themes, such as caravans. Other works depicted scenes from

Selected works

* ''Fountain of the Puttos'', Montelanico, Italy * ''Saturnalia'' 1899 * The Fountain Biondi, Cisterna, Italy * ''Monument to the Italian Risorgimento's Heroes'', Piazza della Libertà, Frosinone, Italy 1910

Footnotes

References

* * * Taft, Lorado, ''Modern Tendencies in Sculpture: The Scammon Lectures at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1917'', University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois 1928 * *

External links

Jardin Botanico de Buenos Aires - Guía de Buenos Aires - Buenos Aires Guide
at www.ompersonal.com.ar

at valutarte.it {{DEFAULTSORT:Biondi, Ernesto 1855 births People from Frosinone 1917 deaths 20th-century Italian sculptors 20th-century Italian male artists 19th-century Italian sculptors 19th-century Italian male artists Italian male sculptors