a typically Victorian black widow’s weeds.
However, with each passing year this fixation with dress and social standing is proving to be more and more difficult to maintain. Mother and daughter mourn and pray as they relentlessly turn to dust, crumbling to pieces as they wait for some salvation that never comes. They still keep, as a memento, a touching oval portrait of their departed loved one – the one true recipient of their affection and gratitude.
This is a realist take on the subject where the figures depicted are not symbols in disguise but the actual wife and daughter of the deceased in mourning
This type of monument, depicting the widow in mourning, was a recent idea in funerary art. This is not a personification of Grief or Meditation, as was typical of Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and many of his followers. This is a realist take on the subject where the figures depicted are not symbols in disguise but the actual wife and daughter of the deceased in mourning. The introduction of a mourning child, once again a relatively modern addition to funerary iconography, adds to the palpable sense of grief. It had become customary amongst Italian sculptors of the period to excel in tactile effects, skillfully yielding out of marble or other materials the texture of lace, embroidery and silk as was demanded by their commissioners.
People of social standing wanted themselves to be immortalised in an appropriate monument wearing the latest in mourning dress and
related accessories. In the Cimiterio di Staglieno in Genoa, this fixation with mourning fashion had reached such a ridiculous level that a published article openly disapproved of such practices arguing that marble monuments are intended to last forever and, thus, should be free from the exigencies of fashion which is, by its very nature, temporary (Berresford, 2004: 154-156). In a way this monument has become a veritable symbol of ubiquitous death – a memento mori. The work of art created to immortalise the Consul and his family, to conquer time so to speak, has surrendered itself to the irrevocable march of death and decay. Proof, if ever there was any need, that, try as we might, death will eventually overcome.
Yet, this is not the end of our yarn. As stories usually do, it is entwined with another. Who had created this monument?
Answering this question may perhaps help us to understand better the monument’s deftly pictorial and tactile qualities; we may perhaps empathise with its two characters whose contained grief is so sensitively human. Its implicit realism and fresh handling of material impart a strongly Sicilian or southern Italian flavour and character, qualities found in the likes of Vincenzo Gemito (18521929), Ettore Ximenes (18551926) and Achille d’Orsi (18451929) (Berresford, 2004:59).
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