Getty Adds a Thorvaldsen Portrait
Bertel Thorvaldsen, Rosa Taddei , 1826. Getty Museum The Getty Museum has acquired a portrait bust by Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. A marble likeness of Italian actor and poet Rosa Taddei, it was shown at TEFAF 2020 by Galleria Carlo Virgilio, Rome. Measuring just under 20 in. high, the Getty bust is the only version in stone. A preparatory plaster is in the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen. Rosa Taddei (1799–1869) was what we now might call a spoken word artist. She drew audience suggestions out of a hat and improvised original poems on the spot. Taddei and Thorvaldsen knew each other, and it's said that Taddei once embarrassed the sculptor with her fulsome praise during a performance. The icy reserve of Thorvaldsen's portrait belies the subject's reported abilities as a tragic actor. Thorvaldsen's only rival in early 19th-century Rome was Antonio Canova. They were like Matisse and Picasso, leapfrogging each other's innovations. Yet within a cen...
