Antonio Corradini
Antonio Corradini (6 September 1668 - 29 June 1752) was a Venetian Rococo sculptor.
Corradini was born in Este and worked mainly in the Veneto, but also completed commissions for work outside Venice, including Naples.
Sometime in 1718 or 1719 he was commissioned to execute a monument to Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, Marshal of the Venetian forces for the defence of island of Corfu. He was paid in 1720 for a signed altar dedicated to the Blessed Hemma, installed in the crypt of Gurk Cathedral in Carinthia.
Corradini completed the outdoor marble statuary group, Nessus and Deianira (1718-23), for the Grosser Garten in Dresden. The Apollo Flaying Marsyas and Zephyrus and Flora (1723-8) are two life-sized marble sculptures originally commissioned by the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong for the gardens of the Höllandisches Palais in Dresden (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
In 1750, he completed Veiled Truth (also called Modesty or Chastity) a remarkable tomb monument dedicated to Cecilia Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, mother of Raimondo de Sangro, the main patron of the Sansevero Chapel (Capella Sansevero de' Sangri or Pietatella) in central Naples, who died at the early age of 23. Not only is it a technically inspired work, but the conceit of modesty shielded by the flimsiest of veils creates an alluring but ironic tension, perhaps one somewhat unmerited for a chapel funerary monument, but one that does compel remembrance. Another work of his, Christ Veiled under a Shroud, found in the same chapel, was subsequently completed by Giuseppe Sanmartino (1720-1793). The same artifice of "veiled" marble is utilized.
Antonio Corradini died in Naples.
References
- Bruce Boucher (1998). Thames & Hudson, World of Art (ed.). Italian Baroque Sculpture. pp. 22, 102.