Last
week we began installation of our exhibit “Following Our Path” in the Carney
Gallery, and we’re all very excited to see it all finally coming together. We
knew going into the installation process that we might have to make some (or
many) last minute changes, additions, or even deletions to the exhibit. It just
happens.
Well,
when something like that happens, it can end up having some very cool results.
I had been cleaning up a small bust of Mary and baby Jesus and I noticed that
the artist signature on the piece didn’t match what we had on the label. So I
noted the change, and did a Google search to see if I could find out the
artist’s first name, as it was not included in the signature. Instead of a
first name, I found an interesting connection to a famous place in England.
The
artist, Raffaelle Monti (I did finally find his first name) was a member of the
Crystal Palace Art Union, which was a collaboration of European artists who
worked making porcelain copies of classical and contemporary marble sculptures.
The Union was housed in London’s Crystal Palace, originally built in 1851 for
the Great Exhibition, which showcased industry and inventions from all over the
world, as well as English history. The Crystal Palace Art Union exhibited and
sold pieces from the Sheffield Court, which was originally meant to house
important pieces of Sheffield silver. The Union would operate well into the
1860s.
The Crystal Palace
Raffaelle
Monti exhibited copies of many of his own pieces at the Union, including a copy
of one of his most famous works, “The Veiled Vestal.” Altered and renamed “The
Veiled Bride” for the Union, the piece was made for the 6th Duke of
Devonshire, and currently resides in Chatsworth House in England. The statue
was featured in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride
and Prejudice, starring Kiera Knightley.
While
this was all a very last minute discovery, it’s still important, and showed me
why it’s important to always do my research. Simply wanting to be thorough and
to have a complete label led me to make an interesting discovery that links
Regis College’s collection to the larger world of art. Who knows what else
we’ll find as we continue installing?
