Luigi Bienamé
(Carrara 1795 - 1878 Rome)

Innocense

White marble
Signed and dated '1826 BIENAIMÉ F.'
Comissioned by D. Kwinson
Height 133 cm

An exceptionally fine work, Innocence represents an abstract concept by means of female beauty, a beauty which is not, however, fascinating or seductive, but rather modest and moral on account of its ingenuous formal purity, its simplicity and virginal composure and the austerity of its contemplative expression. A contemporary described it thus:
“we see with trembling that she has a serpent in her hands which rises voluptuously and caressingly, slithering beneath her chin, and we see her warm it in her blameless breast which has never learnt to palpitate with fear” (cf. A.M. Ricci, Sculture di Luigi Bienaimè da Carrara descritte dal Cavaliere Angelo Maria Ricci, Rome 1838).

The mention of Innocence in the catalogue of Bienaimé’s works published by Count Hawks Le Grice in Walks Through the Studies of the Sculptors in Rome (1841), permits the original client for the work, known at present only by this exemplar, to be identified as D. Kwinson.

 

Click image for zoomfunction and multiple views