Читать книгу The Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto - Marc-Joachim Wasmer - Страница 10

The fame of the Swiss artist who had chosen to serve the Risorgimento spread abroad. Undoubtedly, this also served Cavour’s diplomatic interests. Vela became one of the new ‘Salon artists‘: his career no longer relied solely on commissions but was also driven by his skilfully managed participation in public exhibitions. Thus Italy Grateful to France (I), a supremely eloquent allegory exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1863 and commissioned by a group of Milanese noblewomen as a symbolic gift for Empress Eugénie of France, earned him the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. The sculptor was also asked to portray Christopher Columbus for Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, the same year that Edouard Manet caused a scandal with Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe! The sculpture entitled The Last Moments of Napoleon I (1866, II, today in Versailles), a reflection on the rise and fall of the powerful with an intense emotional impact, also caused a sensation at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. Vela was awarded a first-class gold medal and promoted to Officier de la Légion d’honneur, while the work itself was purchased for a considerable sum by Napoleon III, nephew of the Emperor, who installed it opposite Sappho (1852), the statue of the Greek poetess executed by James Pradier, in the Palais de Saint-Cloud.