The marble statue “Humility” is one of the iconic works in the collection of the Tambov Art Gallery. It was created by the Italian neoclassical sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini.
Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850) was one of the most prominent sculptors of Antonio Canova’s generation. Bartolini was popular with society and was noticed by some of the people of influence. Even Napoleon himself extended his patronage to the sculptor. With the fall of Napoleon, the sculptor moved to Florence where he resided until his death.
The statue “Humility” entered the Tambov Art Gallery from the collection of Boris Chicherin. Initially, it was attributed to the Italian sculptor Francesco Barzaghi. However, in the early 1960s, Alexander Salikov, a researcher at the gallery, studied the inscriptions on the base of the statue and identified that it had been designed by another Italian sculptor — Lorenzo Bartolini. As soon as the sculptor had been identified correctly, it was discovered that there was also a similar statue titled “Humility” in the State Hermitage Museum. A request was sent to the Hermitage. The museum’s senior researcher Nina Kosareva replied that the statue from Tambov was most likely one of the copies made by Bartolini himself and completed after his death by his closest follower Pasquale Romanelli.
In the 2000s, when a new catalog of the Tambov Art Gallery was being prepared, the art expert Yekaterina Salyakhova suggested that the statue might have originated from the collection of Count Pavel Sergeyevich Stroganov. Apart from a short reference found in the list of works from Stroganov’s collection, there is also information about Bartolini’s close contacts with Anatoly Demidov, who was Stroganov’s first cousin once removed. Presumably, Demidov commissioned the sculptor to make a monument to his father Nikolay Demidov, a former ambassador to the court of Tuscany.
Interestingly, in the early 21st century, an album dedicated to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan was published in the popular series “Great Museums of the World”. This museum also houses a similar statue under a different name “Trust in God”. The marble statue from Milan dates back to 1833–1836 and is almost the same size as the one from Tambov. The album also tells the story of the statue. It was commissioned by the mother of the museum’s founder Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli, to console her in her grief. The title of this version was inspired by the idea of the life-saving power of faith which determined the image of the statue.
Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850) was one of the most prominent sculptors of Antonio Canova’s generation. Bartolini was popular with society and was noticed by some of the people of influence. Even Napoleon himself extended his patronage to the sculptor. With the fall of Napoleon, the sculptor moved to Florence where he resided until his death.
The statue “Humility” entered the Tambov Art Gallery from the collection of Boris Chicherin. Initially, it was attributed to the Italian sculptor Francesco Barzaghi. However, in the early 1960s, Alexander Salikov, a researcher at the gallery, studied the inscriptions on the base of the statue and identified that it had been designed by another Italian sculptor — Lorenzo Bartolini. As soon as the sculptor had been identified correctly, it was discovered that there was also a similar statue titled “Humility” in the State Hermitage Museum. A request was sent to the Hermitage. The museum’s senior researcher Nina Kosareva replied that the statue from Tambov was most likely one of the copies made by Bartolini himself and completed after his death by his closest follower Pasquale Romanelli.
In the 2000s, when a new catalog of the Tambov Art Gallery was being prepared, the art expert Yekaterina Salyakhova suggested that the statue might have originated from the collection of Count Pavel Sergeyevich Stroganov. Apart from a short reference found in the list of works from Stroganov’s collection, there is also information about Bartolini’s close contacts with Anatoly Demidov, who was Stroganov’s first cousin once removed. Presumably, Demidov commissioned the sculptor to make a monument to his father Nikolay Demidov, a former ambassador to the court of Tuscany.
Interestingly, in the early 21st century, an album dedicated to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan was published in the popular series “Great Museums of the World”. This museum also houses a similar statue under a different name “Trust in God”. The marble statue from Milan dates back to 1833–1836 and is almost the same size as the one from Tambov. The album also tells the story of the statue. It was commissioned by the mother of the museum’s founder Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli, to console her in her grief. The title of this version was inspired by the idea of the life-saving power of faith which determined the image of the statue.
