We looked at inspiring draped motifs and transparencies on statues in a few previous posts, and at times we mentioned the "Veiled Christ" by Giuseppe Sanmartino, preserved in the Sansevero Chapel, in Naples.
This statue, representing the dead Christ with his head resting on two pillows and a draped veil covering the figure, has often turned into an inspiration in fashion for that ethereal mesmerising transparency giving viewers the illusion of truly standing in front of a real body covered with a diaphanous veil.
This statue is surrounded by other statues in the chapel and two of them are also interesting for what regards the representation of fabrics and textiles.
One is the allegory of Modesty (1752), embodied by a veiled woman, another is the allegory of Disillusion (1753-1754).
The former, by Antonio Corradini, was dedicated by Raimondo di Sangro to the memory of his "incomparable mother", Cecilia Gaetani d'Aquila d'Aragona.
The artist was known for his sculptures of veiled figures, but reached pure perfection with this statue elegantly covered with a veil that falls naturally on her body.
The Disillusion statue by Francesco Queirolo, dedicated by Raimondo di Sangro to his father Antonio, Duke of Torremaggiore, forms with the Veiled Christ and with Modesty a sort of special group of sculptures, all of them characterised by textile elements represented in stone.
Disillusion represents a man set free of sin, symbolised by the net, that also hinted at Antonio's eventful and disordered life (after the premature death of his wife, Antonio travelled extensively, but, in his old age, tired and repentant, he returned to Naples).
This net is the most detailed element of the statue: Queirolo put all his extraordinary skills in the recreation of the net that looks extremely real and that left 18th and 19th century travellers puzzled and that still amazes contemporary visitors.
On the Sansevero Museum site you can find further information about this statue, such as the fact that Italian historian and philosopher Giangiuseppe Origlia described it in his Istoria dello Studio di Napoli, as "the last and most trying test to which sculpture in marble can aspire".
Legends say that some of the veils and nets covering the other statues in the chapel are not made from marble, but they were real fabrics turned into marble by a secret alchemical process that anatomist, scientist and inventor Raimondo di Sangro had discovered (apparently he had also created a sort of synthetic liquid marble...), but historical reports prove that these effects were created thanks to the fine work of talented sculptors. Queirolo for example had to burnish the sculpture with pumice personally, as the craftsmen of the period, though specialised in the burnishing phase, refused to touch the delicate net in case it broke into pieces in their hands.
In the history of art there is nothing like these monuments that, through the representation of a soft material - a veil or a net - with a hard material like marble, also hint at life dichotomies such as human fragility and strength, virtues and vice or body and soul.
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