A Love Story in Marble

by

Sharon Gothard

 

She gazed upon the heavens, and Lelio upon her, for in the lady's face he saw his heaven; and thus he remained absorbed and motionless as a statue; his eyes were filled with tears, that flowed abundantly down his cheeks without anguish or any other sensation; as I have sometimes seen the dew gathered in the hollow of some statue's eyes, so that it seemed to be weeping….

F. D. Guerrazzi,

Isabella Orsini: A Historical Novel of the Fifteenth Century

The Beginning

 Sometime in early March of 2020, a colleague of mine asked me about the sculpture that stands at the front entrance of the library. I too, have always been curious, so this started a serious look into the statue that we always thought was “Tasso,” or “The Youthful Tasso.” To look at the sculpture you see a graceful young boy with clothing from the mid-1500s, holding a rather worn book. He looks pensive, possibly daydreaming. After doing some research we now know what he was dreaming of, or should I say of whom (Photo 1).

Photo 1

The only information the library had of the statue at that time was a brochure done in July 1999 by Geoff Finger. Finger had written a short history of the statue for the Architecture & Art of Historic Downtown Easton: A Regional Academy of Excellence. This was a school project. He believed the statue was of Torquato Tasso 1544-1594 and the brochure had a brief history of him. He also stated the sculptor was Lelio Torelli. (This is chiseled on the front of the statue.) (Photo 2) (I do not know how or where Finger got his information.)

Photo 2

Frederick Bond III, art researcher, Dr. Frank Dagastino, medical doctor (both can read and speak Italian) and I, Marx Room historian, researched Tasso, Lelio Torelli, and Porzio. (Porzio is written in script, on the back of the statue.)(Photo 3)

Photo 3

Catholina Lambert 1834 - 1923

 There is a catalog found online of the sculpture. An announcement of the sale led us to Catholina Lambert. This was a rather large art sale in February of 1916 that had been in New York City at the Plaza Hotel (Photo 5). In the 1916 auction catalog, they called it “The Youthful Tasso” (Photo 4). It states that Lelio Torelli was the sculptor (he was not).

Photo 5

  

Photo 4

 

 

It was understandable why Finger or even I would think this statue was named “Tasso.”  Lambert   had at one time owned the sculpture (Photo 6). Lambert was a silk mill owner in Paterson, NJ and Hawley, PA. He was born in England in 1834, and gained tremendous wealth from his silk mills. Lambert collected many great works of art. He built Lambert Castle in Paterson and displayed most of his art, including this statue, in his spacious home. After the Paterson Silk Strike of 19131, Lambert never recovered financially. He had a large 3-day auction of his art collection in 1916. The auction was at the New York City’s Plaza Hotel. The statue appears to have sold as the catalog has a sale price listed and the American Art News states it was sold (Photo 8). An art agent, William Wilbert Seaman was listed as the buyer.

Photo 6

Photo 8

 

My first contact was Patrick Byrnes, Acting Director/Librarian at the Passaic County Historical Society in New Jersey. After Lambert’s death in 1923, the castle and archives eventually went to this historical society. Their archives have a list of pre-sale art, but unfortunately, not what artwork was sold nor whom had acquired it. Lambert did not want to keep records or any details of how he acquired a piece of art as he bought it for the love of art, not profit or business. The Passaic Historical Society kindly sent a photo showing the “Tasso” statue along with other sculptures and paintings in the addition that Lambert built in 1896. Unfortunately, this addition was torn down in 1936 after years of neglect (Photo 7). 1. The 1913 Paterson silk strike was a work stoppage involving silk mill workers in Paterson, New Jersey. The strike involved demands for establishment of an eight-hour day and improved working conditions.

Photo 7

 

Francesco Porzio 1854 - 1934 

All involved in the research were fairly certain the sculptor was Porzio, per the inscription on the back of the sculpture, and soon found Francesco Porzio. Porzio was born in Vercelli, Italy in 1854 and died in 1934. The next place I contacted was the Museo Borgogna in Vercelli. This museum had a Porzio sculpture, but made of bronze. It was a shot in the dark and with the Covid pandemic starting, I was not too hopeful for a response. I was very happy when Alessia Meglio, archivist at the museum responded. She was not familiar with the statue we had. As a nice gesture she sent a book the Museum had put out titled, “Francesco Porzio, 1854 -1934: Un omaggio allo scultore vercellese” or “a tribute to the sculptor from Vercelli,” by Cinzia Lacchia and Vittorio Natale. The whole book, of course, is in Italian, but in the book is a small photo of our statue (Photo 9). This in turn, opened up and told us almost everything about our statue.

Photo 9

The photo is captioned, “Lelio Torelli o Paggio di Isabella Orsin,” or “Lelio Torelli Page of Isabella Orsini.” Natale cites Porzio’s own manuscript. This sculpture was Porzio’s graduation project from the Brera Academy 2 in Milan and was shown in Naples at the “Esposizione Nazionale in Napoli” (National Exposition) in 1877. It then went to a Paris Exhibition in 1878, where it was sold. (We do not know who purchased it) I did reach out to Vittorio Natale and he graciously replied. He was pleased to hear we have this sculpture as he did not know where it had gone or even if it existed anymore. He stated it was certainly one of the most important works of Porzio. I asked Mr. Natale if he could write for us, why he felt this sculpture was so important. The following is what Natale and Cinzia Lacchia wrote. 2 Since 1776, when the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria decided to meticulously organize the teaching of Fine Arts, the Accademia di Brera has not only been a point of reference for the History of Art and its teaching, but it has represented a cultural outpost capable of forging science, literature and the arts. 

Vercelli is today a quiet town in the north-west of Italy, between Turin and Milan, but it was an extremely important center during the Middle Ages. Vercelli also achieved considerable economic development starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, thanks to the introduction of modern entrepreneurial agriculture, especially for the cultivation of rice. In this Piedmontese city was born and worked for most of his life, in the decades between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the following century, the sculptor Francesco Porzio, who has characterized many urban spaces with his public monuments, [….] portrayed the wealthy families in a considerable number of busts[,] and contributed to furnishing the bourgeois residences with various small decorative bronzes. We (Cinzia Lacchia, curator in the Borgogna Museum in Vercelli and Vittorio Natale, art historian) dedicated a small volume to this artist a few years ago, also thanks to the generous contribution of a descendant of the sculptor. It was noted then (and it was hoped for) that the publication would cause the emergence of other works, perhaps still lying today in hidden deposits and in private collections. Some new works have actually come to light in recent years, but the most amazing recognition was undoubtedly that of the statue of Lelio Torelli, kept at the Easton Library and coming, as Sharon Gothard's research has made clear, from the collection by Catholina Lambert. The 1916 sale catalog gives us the image of this large and almost encyclopedic collection of European art, which included a large group of contemporary marble sculptures. It was Porzio himself, in his autobiographical Ricordi, who told us how the sale of Lelio Torelli allowed him to finance his youthful training stay in Paris: "When the 1878 world exhibition opened and the fury of the work ceased, I helped some exhibitor in the exhibition itself in need, and, in order to live, I was the representative of the companies entrusted to me, contenting myself with what was offered to me. But really, I lived with the product obtained from the sale of a real-size marble statue - 1.70 m - made in Milan while I was still studying in Brera, entitled ‘Paggio di Isabella Orsini’. Sold through the Hotel des ventes to Mr Leon Blavel Rue Universale ". The marble work was presented, before leaving for Paris, at the National Exhibition of Naples in 1877, but the first version, certainly in plaster, had appeared in 1874 as an annual essay at the Brera Academy in Milan, which Porzio was then attending. The Lelio Torelli is therefore the first work of considerable commitment by the sculptor that already makes us understand towards which environments and current [sic] the young and talented artist was looking at. The attention to the precise description of the details, the moved, pictorial and naturalistic treatment of the surfaces, the revival of a literary theme, derived from a story by Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi published in 1844 (Isabella Orsini Duchess of Bracciano), [and] the effort to deepen the psychological, intimate, pensive and melancholy aspect of the character bring the work closer to the Lombard “Scapigliatura”. This group of Milanese origin gathered artists and writers who opposed the official culture to look with admiration at French naturalism, referring back to the lifestyle of the bohemians. It is no coincidence that the title used by Porzio in his Ricordi (Paggio di Isabella Orsini) evokes that of a work by the most famous sculptor of the “Scapigliatura”, the Paggio di Lara [,] presented by Giuseppe Grandi at the Brera Exhibition in 1873 and today preserved at the Gallery of Modern Art of Milan. Grandi's sculpture was also inspired by a literary theme, this time by Lord Byron, depicting a young, graceful, elegant and somewhat affected character in tights and had amazed the public for the lively and pictorial treatment of the surfaces. This will be a setting that will characterize a large part of Francesco Porzio's production, up to the early years of the twentieth century. Of this path our page certainly represents one of the most significant and high quality work[s], which documents the talent of an artist who in this sculpture seems willing to express all his personal youthful restlessness. Cinzia Lacchia, Vittorio Natale, October 2021 

 Brief History of Isabella and Lelio

 Isabella Medici was born in 1542 and died in July 1576. She was a daughter of Cosimo I de Medici (1519–1574), grand duke of Tuscany (r. 1569–1574), and Eleonora de Medici (1522–1562). She married Paolo Giordano Orsini, prince of Bracciano or Brachiano, in 1558 (Photo 10).

Orsini

Isabella Orsini’s short life ended tragically, supposedly by her husband’s hands. In no brief history of hers have I seen any mention of Lelio Torelli. However, there was a novel and later a play written about her. It is in this story that Lelio is mentioned, and it is this story that Francesco Porzio must have read (Photo 11). Torelli was the son of Sir Anton Francesco Torelli, one of the best families in the territory of Fermo. “Sir Anton Francesco, having himself served a long time with the Cardinal dei Medici in Rome, thought he might easily install his son Lelio as page in the court of the Grand Duke Cosimo.” 3

Photo 11

 

Photo 10

In the story, Lelio, Isabella’s court page, is in love with her. He is much younger than her, but dreams and thinks of her often. He even steals her book, poems of Petrarch, that she constantly carries with her. “Lady Isabella possessed a little volume of Petrarch's poems which always accompanied her in her solitary walks; this book disappeared, for Lelio had appropriated it to himself and was never tired of reading in it.”4 (Photo 12) Looking at the sculpture, we can now see who Lelio was thinking and dreaming about and the importance of the book that he was holding. Porzio beautifully sculpted Lelio in a reflective and pensive pose dreaming of Isabella (Photo 13).

Photo 12

 “And when, on calm evenings, the windows of the hall being open, the Lady Isabella poured forth a flood of harmony through the dark air, singing and playing songs and melodies, perhaps already composed, or, abandoning herself to the inspiration that moved her, improvising the verses and setting them to music; Lelio would stand motionless, leaning against a tree or the pedestal of a statue in the garden, inhaling a fatal enchantment, rendered more intoxicating by the atmosphere, the hour, the odorous emanations which the dewy herbs and flowers sent forth, and the sweet light which fell from the starry heavens; and when the windows were closed, the lamps lighted, and all animate creation resigned itself to that repose to which nature invites it, this solitary youth was still so absorbed in ecstasy, that he alone remained forgetful of everything, standing in the same place, until the first rays of the rising sun shining in his eyes recalled him to the accustomed duties of life.”⁵

 I sadly add that Torelli was killed by Isabella’s husband’s jealous cousin, who was said to be having an affair with her.

3. F. D. Guerrazzi , Isabella Orsini: A Historical Novel of the Fifteenth Century. Translated from the Italian By Luigi Monti, A.M.  4. Ibid   5. Ibid.

 

 

The Sculpture and the Easton Area Public Library

 

We errantly thought the sculpture’s title was “Tasso” or “The Youthful Tasso” and now know it was titled by the sculptor as “Lelio Torelli, Page of Isabella Orsini”. We now know the artist was Francesco Porzio of Vercelli, Italy and not Lelio Torelli or Lot Torelli. The subject is not Torquato Tasso, but Lelio Torelli, the page boy of Isabella Orsini.

We do know that the sculpture was given the title of “Tasso,” as it is listed in the 1916 sale catalog. One would assume that Lambert was given that name when he purchased it. Lot Torelli, (1835-1896 Italian sculptor) did a sculpture of “Tasso as a Boy” (Photo 14). Perhaps the confusion of who was the sculptor, came from the last name Torelli.

Photo 13

Photo 14

 

There are two mysteries that remain. How did the library acquire the sculpture and where did the title “The Youthful Tasso” come from? We are very fortunate to have all the original minutes of the library. I looked through the numerous volumes of these, hoping to see how and when the sculpture was obtained or donated. At least three times I perused the books and did not find any mention of the statue coming to the library.  We know it was given in the time span of the original Carnegie Building as it is partially showing in a slide photo of the original front entrance stairs (Photo 15). This slide was from the late 1960s. Unfortunately, Henry Marx, the Library Director, did not include his librarian report in the minute books. Whether he mentioned the statue or not in those reports, we will never know. However, in a library minutes book, Dr. John Edgar Fretz is noted as having donated a marble pedestal to the library on May 1, 1916, months after the large art sale in New York City. I believe this pedestal may have been from that sale. Yet, checking his will and his wife’s will, there was no sculpture that was bequeathed to the library. Additionally, in November of 1938, there is mention in the library minutes ; “The matter of removing the statue now standing in the main room of the library was discussed. The board instructed the librarian to get in touch with Mr. Howell ¹ and arrange for its removal.” The next board meeting was not until April 1939 and there was no more mention of the statue. Did “removal” mean move or completely taken away? Was this the sculpture? 

Photo 15

 

At this point, I suspect the donor may have wanted to stay anonymous.

Since the subject is holding a book, I believe it was suitably donated to the library.

 

1. Mr. Howell is of Howell’s DJ Sons Monument/Tombstones in Easton, PA