Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963) Female Portrait (Wife of Gianni Vagnetti), 1930s Terracotta Height: 44 cm

Reserved

Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963)

Female Portrait (Wife of Gianni Vagnetti), 1930s

Terracotta

Height: 44 cm

A Tuscan sculptor active between Florence and Volterra, Giorgio Rossi created this female bust in the 1930s, within the cultural climate of the Novecento (Italian 20th-century art) and the figurative research of the interwar period. The work depicts Marguerite Normand, known as Gioia, wife of the Tuscan painter Gianni Vagnetti, a figure well integrated into the Florentine artistic milieu of the time.

A Florentine painter, Gianni Vagnetti maintained close connections with France, traveling there repeatedly during the 1920s. It was during one of these stays that he met his future wife, of French origin, portrayed here.

This portrait belongs to the mature phase of Rossi’s production, when the naturalism of his early years gradually gives way to a more synthetic and controlled construction. The stylized treatment of the eyes, the simplification of planes, and the continuous profile reveal a sensibility close to Italian Art Deco, filtered through a solid Tuscan sculptural tradition. The sitter’s individual features remain recognizable, yet are restrained within a composed form, free of narrative or celebratory intent.

Terracotta, the artist’s preferred material, consciously evokes the Etruscan and Renaissance heritage of central Italy. Rossi employs it as a means of plastic synthesis, allowing the surface to remain visible and vibrant, consistent with a poetics grounded in the solidity of volumes and clarity of form rather than descriptive detail.

The work is documented and published in the catalogue Volti dal passato. Giorgio Rossi e le sue Muse and stands as a representative example of that phase of the Novecento in which Tuscan sculpture renewed the tradition of portraiture through a balance between classical memory and modern sensibility.

Condition: good.

Artist biography

Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963) was a sculptor and educator, active primarily in Tuscany between Florence and Volterra. Trained in the early 20th century, he took part in major national exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1930 and 1936. His work developed across monumental sculpture, portraiture, and small-scale works, with a particular preference for terracotta and alabaster. From the 1920s onward, his language evolved toward a formal synthesis associated with the Novecento, while maintaining a strong connection to the Tuscan sculptural tradition. Alongside his artistic activity, he taught for more than thirty years at the Artistic and Industrial School of Volterra.