OTTAVIO BARTOLUCCI
Italy, 19th century
Una and the lion
marble, cm 32,5×27
This small sculpture represents a naked woman being carried on a lion’s back, from whom the cloak that was covering her seems to have just slipped. Although the image could evoke ancient myths, it’s actually a vision described by the epic poem The Faerie Queene, written by Edmund Spencer in 1590. The work is a great allegory of Christian virtues, and the protagonist can be identified as Queen Elizabeth I of England.
The sculpture represents Una and the lion, a subject taken from the poem that enjoyed great success in the 19th century, given that another version with variants of this same image was presented at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.
