Signed and dated 1854.

Provenance: Private collection, Brescia

Comparative literature: I. Fumagalli in "Biblioteca italiana", 1833, t. 212, p. 270;
G. Barbieri, "A Pompeo Marchesi, per lo dono fatto all'autore d'un piccolo Nazzareno portante la divina epigrafe 'Diliges' in "La Moda", 16 December 1841, p. 398;
M. Mondini and C. Zani (cured by), "Paolo Tosio. Un collezionista bresciano dell'Ottocento", Brescia 1981, p.40, fig. II.20;
A. Sassi, "Pompeo Marchesi", Saltrio 1983, p. 36 and p. 63, fig. 38;
O. Cucciniello, "Neoclassico/Romantico. Pompeo Marchesi scultore collezionista", GAM Milan 2023, p. 20 (fig. 7) and pp. 194 and 195, n° V.8.

The sculpture presented here is a bust reduction of the famous and successful full-figure model of the "Child Christ teaching in the Temple" (also known as "Child Jesus among the Doctors"/"The Nazarene"/"Redeemer") created by Pompeo Marchesi in 1833 commissioned by Count Paolo Tosio for the chapel of his palace in Brescia and exhibited in Brera in the same year, where it met with unanimous enthusiasm ("[...] the divine child in the attitude of moving while speaking points to the heart with the left hand to express that the whole law is love, and by raising the right hand a little with two fingers open it signifies the two heads of this precept [...] the face exudes an aura of meekness and sweetness that enamores, and perhaps ahead of time it recalls a little of that conventional physiognomy that is usually given to the Redeemer" - I. Fumagalli in "Biblioteca Italiana", 1833, p.
The idealized beauty combined with the delicate sentimentalism masterfully expressed by the sweetness of the features created the conditions for his collecting fortune and for the production of other versions by Marchesi: full-figure replicas were made, among others, for the future Tsar of Russia Alexander II in 1841 and for the entrepreneur of German origin Enrico Mylius in 1842, a version still preserved in the cemetery of Villa Vigoni in Laveno di Menaggio. In addition to the 'full figures', Pompeo Marchesi also created bust versions (like the present one), perhaps as a gift for friends and patrons, as evidenced by the celebratory poem composed by the poet Giuseppe Barbieri "A Pompeo Marchesi, per lo dono fatto all'autore d'un piccolo Nazzareno portante la divina epigrafe 'Diliges'", published in "La Moda" on 16 December 1841.
Due to some details of the folds of the mantle, our bust seems to derive directly from the 'Mylius' version rather than from the original sculpture for Count Tosio, and is ideally comparable to the typology of the 'Barbieri' bust also due to the presence of the same writing engraved at the base .