14.5x7.5x6.5 In.

This sculpture is inspired by Italian sculptor Luigi Pampaloni’s celebrated Praying Boy, first executed in plaster in 1826 for the funerary monument of Anna Potocki’s youngest daughter. The composition, which Pampaloni repeated in marble and plaster, became immensely popular and was widely imitated by Italian workshops. Pampaloni, a pupil of Lorenzo Bartolini at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, absorbed his master’s Neoclassicism but infused it with a more naturalistic and romantic sensibility.

The figure is rendered with delicacy, adorned with finely detailed curled hair, soft facial features, and carefully modeled hands clasped in devotion. The natural translucency of the alabaster enhances the lifelike quality, giving warmth and depth to the surface. The cushion beneath the child is naturalistically treated, with wrinkles and folds convincingly modeled to suggest the weight of the body upon it.

The innocence and sentimentality of the work are matched by the technical mastery in the treatment of the cushion, which was one of Pampaloni’s hallmarks and remained influential in later workshop adaptations such as the present alabaster example. 

Non-exportable

Provenance: The Estate of Mangaldas Nathubhai