Italian Alabaster Bust of Dante's Muse, Beatrice
An Italian alabaster and quartz bust of Beatrice, by Professor Giuseppe Bessi (1857-1922), Dante's muse with downcast eyes and wearing a diadem and coif, on rectangular plinth incised with title, signed to reverse. Height 14.57 in., width 13.78 in., depth 6.69 in. Provenance: Property from the Hermitage, Vaucluse
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- Incised - A record of a name, date or inscription, or a decoration scratched into a surface, usually of a glass or ceramic item with a blunt instrument to make a coarse indentation. Compare with engraving where the surface is cut with a sharp instrument such as a metal needle or rotating tool to achieve a fine indentation.
- Alabaster - Alabaster is soft natural stone used for statuary, with a similar appearance to marble, but easier to work with. As it is softer than marble, an item made from alabaster can be scratched with a metal object, and an alabaster item does not polish to a high surface gloss like marble.
Alabaster objects can be semi-translucent. Alabaster occurs in a pure white form and also with veining from dirt. Colours vary from white through yellow and pink to brown. The veining is usually green or black but can be multicoloured.
Being semi-translucent, alabaster is often used for the bowls of figural lamps, with the figure itself being either alabaster or marble.
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