Satyr and Satyress

Defined in 1889 as “one of the most talented and original minds of our time”[1], Antonio Dal Zotto is the Venetian sculptor who, towards the turn of the century, fully represented the spirit of a refined and meditated verism based on the study of classical models. Mainly known for his official sculptures and monuments destined for public squares that “would worthily figure even in the most sober and measured gallery”[2], denoted by formal purity, effective and multifaceted naturalistic rendering and marked technical skill, he was in fact also a refined interpreter of a production that was anything but minor, and yet less well-known than the public one. Between the 1870s and 1880s, and continuing into the early 20th century, Dal Zotto was the favourite sculptor of the wealthy Venetian bourgeoisie. He was particularly loved for his antiquing register, masterfully expressed in the execution of busts based on ancient models, classical statues, friezes, bas-reliefs, corbels, but also small objects that eclectically and skilfully decorated the most fashionable homes of Venice’s fin de siécle.

An expert collector and scholar of antiquity, Dal Zotto was a skilful copyist of classical and Renaissance sculpture: “What he executed in that era would be enough to fill a gallery. He made everything: clay models, decorative figures in marble, friezes and figures in bronze. From the fireplace for a princely drawing room he descended to the knick-knack, to the tiny reproduction, for the table, of classical works; from the medal to the chiselled helmet; from the amphora to masks, putti and volutes. He had become almost a specialist in the reproduction of ancient bronzes; and there are certain busts scattered around the world that are labelled as works of the 15th century that date back only five lustra, and that cost Dal Zotto a lot of time and indefatigable study to inform them with the spirit and character of the age”[3]. From this eulogy in an 1895 issue of the periodical “Arte e Natura”, we can perceive how the Venetian sculptor’s original acumen, already evident in monumental statuary, is even more freely unleashed in this repertoire destined for the most fashionable market and collectors, in which he can express himself by playing with different coloured marbles, with the most disparate subjects, with the reference to antiquity, which was particularly dear to him, establishing a comparison that deceives and stimulates the viewer’s perception.

This pair consisting of a Satyr and a Satiress is an important example of this antiquarian production. Although they are unsigned – undoubtedly the author wanted to give the busts a character and appearance of ancient originality while leaving them anonymous – these two sculptures can be attributed to Dal Zotto’s authorship, given their stylistic and thematic proximity to other subjects that are decidedly similar but, in other cases, signed or bearing the author’s monogram. The perfect balance of different types of marble, characteristic of this specific Dal Zotto repertoire, creates a dynamic polychrome effect, emphasising the union of human and animal, thanks to the yellow marble used for the thick goat fur draped over the chest, the dark green marble for the flute lying on the chest of the male satyr, held by an almost tangible rope for the effect of mimesis, the red marble for the bodies and the wavy feral hair, the lighter marble for the drapery enveloping the head of the Satyr and the horns of both. In the first torso, the sculptor wanted to emphasise, through an extremely moved and mannered movement of the physical features, the frowning grin typical of the Dionysian representation, with the accentuated nose, the pronounced and pointed ears and the horns bent backwards. The impudent and provocative gaze and the perfect rendering of every peculiar character of the Bacchic world denounce not only the sculptor’s quality and technical expertise, but also his mimetic knowledge of antiquity, in this case declined in an anti-classical dimension and rather on the Hellenistic model, in memory of the Alexandrian court, where the element of the curious, the surprising, dominated much of the production of middle Hellenism. The same for the Satiress, with her facial features well pronounced, bestial if feminine, and with her voluminous hair falling over her shoulder, intertwining with the mantle knotted on her chest. Antonio Dal Zotto, a refined scholar and above all a great collector of antiquity, exhibited not only antique, Gothic and Renaissance pieces in his atelier in San Vio, but also numerous plaster casts of faces, which he made himself on cadavers and kept as teaching material in the Academy, testimony to the great work he knew how to do on faces and expressions, but also to his taste for the different, the unusual, clearly evident in this pair of satyrs and particularly appreciated by the wealthy bourgeoisie at the end of the 19th century.

In particular, the first bust shows a superb face, with a gaze that seems to stare and yearn for something. These physiognomic details bring to mind certain busts or profiles in ovals by Giovanni Bonazza (Venice 1654 – Padua 1736), from whose model of grotesque whimsy, as an excellent Venetian sculptor and scholar of antiquity, Dal Zotto was undoubtedly inspired. Dal Zotto also looked to other references in the genre, including the Flemish Giusto Le Court, who stayed in Venice in the 1650s and left evidence of him in various churches, as the protagonist of an expressive, Baroque. And it is precisely in the tradition of Le Court, later carried on by his pupil Bonazza, that the gallery busts display that profane, playful, mythological, bizarre character that runs through Dal Zotto’s more modern but antiquarian-sounding work. In some features of Bonazza’s pendant ovals depicting Ezzelino da Romano and Attila (Padua, Musei Civici) (fig.1), but also in other character heads and in Democritus, Dal Zotto’s inspiration is revealed: the pointed nose, the sharp gaze, the marked features emphasising the bestial trait of Attila’s character, return – with more lightness and irreverence – in the face of the satyr, in which a mannered grotesque emerges, most interesting for the temporal coordinates in which it is proposed and appreciated. By appealing to antiquarians and exceptional collectors, Dal Zotto makes himself the protagonist of a witty and cultured sculpture, which observes and imitates the antique by combining the humorous and the grotesque and expressing his true vocation as a neo-Baroque sculptor. It is therefore plausible to imagine for this pair of Satyr and Satiress a certainly prestigious destination, in a rich Venetian environment, as was the case for many other busts commissioned from him by well-known and important families such as the Querini.

[1] A. De Gubernatis, Dal Zotto Antonio, in Dizionario degli artisti italiani viventi, Florence, Le Monnier, 1889, p. 156.

[2] A. Centelli, Antonio Dal Zotto, in «Natura e Arte», V, 18, 1895, p. 474

[3] Ivi, p. 472

Elena Lago