AFTER LUIGI BIENAIMÉ (1795-1878), LATE 19TH CENTURY

This large reclining nude is based upon the work of Luigi Bienaimé (d. 1878) who studied under Bertel Thorvaldsen (d. 1844) and subsequently became the director of his atelier. With a burgeoning career, Bienaimé traveled to St. Petersburg and received several commissions for the court and nobility before executing several commissions and copies of his own work throughout the continent. His conception of Reclining Bacchante came to fruition in 1838 and was then gifted to the Hermitage by 1859. Other versions by Bienaimé in the region found their way to national collections including the Latvian National Collection. Only one year after its completion for the Russian court, Raczynski notes in Histoire de l’art moderne en Allemagne that Bienaimé had further versions of his work in Holland, Belgium, England and Italy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, various prolific Roman and Florentine studios drew inspiration from the sensual, delicate, and effortless leisure of Bienaimé’s original. In a departure from more frequent representations of the wine-loving followers of Bacchus, this bacchante reclines gently, enjoying the pleasant and luxurious effects of the drink and her surroundings.