Lot 43: - Annibale Monti , Italian 1875-1941 Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, duke of Aosta white marble, on bronze eagle base and composite column

signed: Le A. Monti sculpt white marble, on bronze eagle base and composite column

measurements note bust: 60.5cm., 23¾in. bronze eagle base and column: 141cm., 55½in.

Annibale Monti's career is an incredible story of artistic triumph over physical disability. After contracting Meningitis at only three years of age he was left a deaf-mute. He attended the Institute for deaf-mutes in Milan before going to the Accademia di Brera where he received his first sculpture training under Enrico Butti. Monti then moved to Piacenza to join the workshop of his sculptor-grandfather Antonio Monti, and his two uncles Alessandro and Silvio. Like his grandfather and uncles much of his sculpture was memorial, but his work was distinguished from the rest of the workshop by its dynamism and modernity.

Annibale was also well-known for his portrait busts. His marriage, in 1907, to the countess Irene Arcelli Fontana gave him an entrée into Emilian aristocracy and access to numerous subjects for portraiture. The present bust was a particularly prestigious commision, portraying the likeness of one of Italy's foremost military commanders. Emanuele Filiberto, second Duke of Aosta, was the cousin was the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III. Emanuele Filiberto was a member of the House of Savoy and had at one time been the Crown Prince of Spain whilst his father held the Spanish throne between 1870 and 1873. The duke commanded the Italian Third Army during the First World War and was named Marshal of Italy in 1926. He is buried alongside his men in the military cemetery of Redipuglia.

RELATED LITERATURE
Panzetta, vol 2, pp. 586-7