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Raffaelo Romanelli (Italian/Florence, 1856-1928), "La Sulamitide [The Shulamite]", 1881, kneeling marble figure, inscribed "SU / LA / MI / TI / DE" across bangles on headdress; signed and dated at side of base, "R. Romanelli Firenze 1881", h. 44 in. Provenance: Possibly Manheim Antiques, New Orleans, 1957; Collection of Mrs. Dudley J. Hughes, Jackson, MS. Note: This wonderful statue represents “the Shulamite,” the heroine of The Song of Songs, “a semidramatic idyll written originally for some notable wedding” somewhat after 332 B.C., and also known in alternative titles as The Book of Canticles, or—somewhat misleadingly, in view of its Aramaic-influenced Hebrew of the Hellenistic period—as The Song of Solomon, one of the most poetical (and puzzling) books of the Old Testament. Initially interpreted as a religious allegory (usually of God’s love for faithful believers, or for the human soul), this short text has also been interpreted as a sort of sacred drama, usually—albeit implausibly—involving Solomon himself, his desired consort (as depicted in this captivating figure), and the shepherd who was construed to have been her first love. That dramatic interpretation, still retaining many aspects of an allegorical reading, was the basis for a popular religious play of the 18th c.—Giuseppe Maria Ercolani, Sulamitide, 1732—one of whose several editions may possibly have inspired this appealing characterization (though “Sulamitide” is the standard Italian word for “Shulamite,” the Hebrew term for the heroine as given in the text [ch. 6, verse 13]; so that Romanelli’s inspiration may have come from no more distant source than his own Bible). The tenderly adoring attitude of this exceptional figure makes it truly one of the most memorable sculptures of its period. Many of the heroine’s attributes are taken directly from the text of Canticles: the inscribed “ornaments of gold [and] silver” on her head, the “strings of jewels [around her] neck” [1:10-11], and perhaps most notably the “cluster of henna blossoms” [1: 14] held in her hand (with another flower seen on the base). Two millennia of inspired commentary about this princess—ostensibly the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh—who traditionally eschewed the rôle of King Solomon’s consort in order to preserve her virtue, have made her (in the writings especially of St. Augustine) the paradigm of a saintly submissiveness, at once imploring the appreciation of her enchanting beauty, while at the same time remaining a chaste embodiment of God’s love. Romanelli’s inspired rendition of those lofty sentiments exemplifies one of the highest achievements of 19th-c. sculpture. References: 4th c. BC, The Song of Solomon (King James and especially Revised Standard versions); Ernest Sutherland Bates, The Bible designed to be read as living literature, New York,1936, p. 771; Rev. Henry Wheeler Robinson and William Robertson Smith, “Canticles,” Encyclopedia Britannica, Cambridge, 1911, 29 vols., vol. 5, pp. 213-217 [with exhaustive review of the historical literature]; [G. M. Ercolani,] Sulamitide; boschereccia sagra di ‘Neralco’ pastore arcade, Roma / Bologna, 1732 [etc.], esp. “avvertimento al lettore,” pp. iii-iv.