After P. Emilio Fiaschi (Italian, 1858-1941): A carved alabaster figural group of 'The Artist's Muse'

modelled as a young artist in Renaissance dress holding a palette and leaning over a scantily clad maiden seated in a Savonarola chair with paw feet, the whole raised on an integral base, signed and dated indistinctly, inscribed to the front ANNO 1818, (some damage to the artists palette and the muse's foot), 82cm high

Emilio Fiaschi was one of a group of highly skilled marble sculptors working in Florence in the late 19th and early 20th century. Concentrating on genre themes and the female nude during the Belle Époque period, the Fiaschi studio produced marble and alabaster editions with great consistency of quality for wealthy visitors and also exported to the rest of Europe and the USA. Fiaschi studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence between 1883 and 1885 and won a medal at an art competition in the town of Volterra (presumed to be his place of birth) in 1890.