Details of Sculptor

Surname

Comolli

Alternative Surname

First Name

Giovanni Battista

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

1775

Flourished

Year of Death

1830

Biographical Details

An Italian sculptor, he spent four years working in England. He was born in Valenza, Piedmont, on 19 February 1775, and studied at the Brera Academy in Milan under Giuseppe Franchi, and in Rome (possibly under Antonio Canova) between 1795 and 1798. In May 1795 he won a prize for a relief of Joseph Confiding Benjamin to Juda from the Accademia di San Luca. That year Sir Richard Westmacott RA won the first prize for the same subject.
In 1800 Comolli was in Grenoble, where he executed a series of portrait busts for the town’s library. In January 1802 he paid his first visit to London during the Peace of Amiens. Later that year he was in Paris, where he executed a bust and a model for a colossal statue of Napoleon. He also made the acquaintance of Giuseppe Ceracchi. In February 1803 he departed for Turin, where he became Professor of Sculpture at the Imperial Academy. Between 1808 and 1812 he was chiefly in Carrara.
Following the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire and the loss of an important patron, Comolli, like his countryman Canova, attempted to develop a market in England. In 1816 he moved with his family to London where he remained until 1820. He rented a studio at 1 Seymour Terrace and enjoyed the patronage of the Grenville family and the Duke of Gloucester (3, 5, 1). The bust of Thomas Grenville (5) is presented all’antica, with the sitter depicted with furrowed, beetle-brows and an inscrutable expression. Comolli’s most significant work was the altar (costing £1,000) and other architectural sculpture for the Roman Catholic Chapel in Moorfields (6). The altar was carved with foliage and two figures of angels with expanded wings. The church was pulled down in 1900 but Comolli’s columns, inspired by the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, were re-used by the architect George Sherrin in the new church, built in 1900. In August 1820 he departed for Paris. He subsequently returned to Milan where he died on 26 December 1830.
Literary References: Britton and Pugin 1823-1828, 2, 9; Gunnis 1968, 112; DBI 1982, 619-626; Grano and Grossi Grano 1990; Panzetta 1994, 95; Busco 1994, 172 n30; Grove 1996, 7, 662 (Balderston); Saur 1998, 460-462; Dawson 1999, 109-11