19th century
Peasant Girl
Alabaster, cm 62 x 18 x 23
Alabaster statuette depicting the female figure of a young peasant woman. The sweetness of the expression is added to the grace of the pose, with her head tilted on her clasped hands and her bust enclosed. These details, combined with the uncertain incision, suggest all the shyness, humility and innocence of the effigy, caught while looking into the distance. The gaze betrays a feeling of enchantment and at the same time desire, perhaps of first love or of her fiancé. The modest costumes, such as the cap and the dress tied at the waist, are rendered with deep and hollow drapery in contrast to the softness of the face and arms. The material, the historical period and the subject recall the statues made by the sculptor Adolfo Luchini, who worked between the 19th and 20th centuries and specialized in marble and alabaster sculptures of mostly female subjects.
