Carlo Tonetti

CARLO TONETTI (Italy, XIX century).
"The Boy with the little bird".
Carrara marble.
Signed.
Measurements: 90 cm. height.

Classicist sculpture in Carrara marble, signed by Carlo Tonetti, an Italian sculptor of whom are preserved refined female busts of Greco-Roman inspiration. This is a quality carving, which can be appreciated in the soft childlike features and in the way in which the fine fabric that dresses him adheres naturally to the small body. The child, with his chubby fingers, tries to feed a wild fruit to a bird that he holds in his other hand. The bird opens its beak, trusting. The treatment of the subject achieves the extemporaneity of the great works. Rather than a neoclassical recreation of ancient works, the author communicates a scene that goes beyond historicism. A timeless patina envelops it. The relaxed posture, the serene countenance, the closed eyelids and the perfect proportions evoke ancient Greece, but do not directly emulate it. We are faced with an everyday theme treated in a harmonious way. The relationship between a child and a vulnerable animal such as a little bird reinforces the idea of harmony between humanity and nature, typical of the idealized vision of childhood in the neoclassical and romantic art of the author's contemporaries. Likewise, these types of representations of children with birds were connoted with veiled spiritual meanings, as prefigurations of the divine due to their connection with the ethereal.