A wonderfully impressive and finely executed 19th Century Carrara marble statue of Psyche and Putti, raised on a fluted Green marble pedestal. Height of statue; 166cm(65") Signed ; Pasquale Romanelli Florence, 1812-1887) Pasquale entered an apprenticeship in a studio producing alabaster sculptures, studying in his free time. Alabaster, or Castellina marble, is softer to carve than usual marble, thus often used by those in training. When he was barely fifteen years old, he became an apprentice in the studio of Luigi Pampaloni, in Piazza San Marco, who trained him sculpting Carrara statuary marble. He was quickly promoted to assisting the master in the carving of the statues of Arnolfo di Cambio and of Filippo Brunelleschi, now placed in the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. Pasquale then was invited to work in the studio of Lorenzo Bartolini, professor of sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, and to attend his courses at the academy. He became Bartolini’s most gifted pupil and certain commissions were passed-on to him. Pasquale worked on the statue of Francesco Ferrucci (1847), which was then placed in an alcove of the loggiato of the Uffizi Gallery in Piazza della Signoria. He soon opened a studio of his own. Batch 79. 52495 HAKZZZ