Lot 17: PIERCE FRANCIS CONNELLY

PIERCE FRANCIS CONNELLY AMERICAN 1841 - 1932 BUST OF A GIRL IN RENAISSANCE DRESS signed and dated: P. F. CONNELLY FECIT FLOR. 1864 white marble on white marble socle 53cm., 20 7/8 in.

Pierce Francis Connelly was born in the frontier town of Grand Coteau in Louisiana, but moved to Europe as a child and received his schooling in England and Italy. Connelly studied art in Paris and Florence and was a pupil of the great American sculptor Hiram Powers. He was well known for his portraits and ideal works and the present bust can be closely compared to his portrait of Julia Blatchford Potter in the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D. C. Both busts are given a neo-Renaissance rendering and display the sculptor's exquisite skills in the carving of the patterns in the drapery. Connelly rose to prominence in the United States after he contributed eleven works to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.

RELATED LITERATURE
T. Tolles, American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol I, New York, 1999, pp. 182-4