Andrea Carlo Lucchesi

Andrea Carlo Lucchesi (November 1860 — 1924) [Dates given by the National Portrait Gallery, London] was an Anglo-Italian sculptor, born and trained in London who had a career in the United Kingdom as an exponent of the naturalistic and symbolist "New Sculpture". [Susan Beattie, "The New Sculpture", (Yale University Press) 1983:180, illus. pl. 182] His portrait of Queen Victoria is on the facade of the Art Gallery, at Bath. [ [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/speel/sculpt/lucchesi.htm Andrea Carlo Lucchesi] ; [http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/victorian/sculpture/nudes/lucchesiov.html Andrea Carlo Lucchesi] ] Lucchesi received his early training from his father, a sculptor, and at the West London School of Art; he first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881. In 1882 his "Waif" won him acceptance at the Royal Academy schools, where he remained five years (1881-86). He was a member of the Art Workers Guild, established in 1884 to promote the "unity of the arts" [Terry Cavanagh and Allison Yarrington, "Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland" (Liverpool University Press), 2000:375 (brief biographical notes).]

Lucchesi specialised in the female nude, naturalistically represented, under allegorical titles, such as "Destiny" ["Destiny received a gold medal at Dresden, 1895, and another at the Exposition Universelle, Paris 1900 (Cavanagh and Yarrington 2000).] and the undisguisedly erotic "Myrtle's Altar" (1899), manifesting clear influences of Art Nouveau and, in the finely modelled symbolic representations of crown, sword, spilled bag of coins, of Symbolism. [ [http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/nudes/lucchesi1.html Bronze reduction of "Myrtle's Altar"] ] In addition to his own work, he assisted Henry Hugh Armstead and Edward Onslow Ford, and provided models for electroplate silverware by Elkington & Company and the Crown Jewelers, Garrard's. He also produced portrait busts: his bronze bust of Sir John Franklin (1898) is conserved at the National Portrait Gallery, London. [ [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp07255&role=art National Portrait Gallery: Andrea Carlo Lucchesi] ]

Notes