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MEDARDO ROSSO (ITALIAN, 1858-1928): ‘BAMBINA RIDENTE’ (BAMBINA CHE RIDE) A wax over plaster head of a laughing girl Subject conceived in 1890, probably cast by the sculptor’s son, Francesco Rosso, from the original plaster model  the head 26.5cm high excluding base, the base 33.5cm x 27cm x 5cm PROVENANCE: Clotilde Longoni Rosso, Milan (the artist's daughter-in-law) Louis Pollock, owner of the Peridot Gallery, New York. Acquired directly from Clotilde Longoni Rosso in 1959. The original invoice is included in the sale. Thence by descent to the present owner. EXHIBITED New York, Peridot Gallery, The First Exhibition in America of Sculpture by Medardo Rosso, 1959-60, no. 6, illustrated in the catalogue (a copy is included in the sale). LITERATURE Margaret Scolari Barr, ‘Medardo Rosso’, New York, 1963, illustrates this cast on page 33. Paola Mola & Fabio Vittucci, ‘Medardo Rosso Catalogo ragionato della scultura’, Museo Medardo Rosso, Skira, 2009. Dr Sharon Hecker, ‘A Moment’s Monument, Medardo Rosso and the International Origins of Modern Sculpture’, University of California Press, 2017, p.131 illustrates a photograph by Medardo Rosso of this model of a cast of the same subject.  OTHER KNOWN CASTS OF ‘BAMBINA RIDENTE’ The following known examples cast in wax are listed in the Catalogue Raisonnée by P. Mola & F. Vittucci: Lifetime casts: 1. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna Rome, inv. 2026. 2. Centro de arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Casts without documented lifetime provenance and those cast legally from the original plaster model by Francesco Rosso: 1. Museo Medardo Rosso, Barzio. 2. Pinacoteca Nazionale di Brera, Milan. 3. Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, inv. 7356, gifted by Francesco Rosso in 1953. 4. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. NM SK 2122 (1972). We are grateful to Dr Sharon Hecker and the Museo Medardo Rosso for assistance with researching and cataloguing this work. This important sculpture belongs to the above rariefied group of casts that are in major museums throughout Europe. It was sold by Medardo’s Rosso’s daughter-in-law Clotilde Longoni Rosso in 1959 to the American art dealer Louis Pollock, owner of the Peridot Gallery, New York. At the same time she also sold two other Medardo Rosso works which are on the same invoice, ‘L'Eta d'oro’ (Golden Age) and ‘Bookmaker’ which also both appeared in the Peridot Gallery exhibition. ‘L’Eta d’oro’ was subsequently sold at Sotheby’s London, on 9th February 2005 as lot 439 for £254,400. Interestingly it was mounted on an almost identical plinth to the present head, on what looks to be the same wood, with rounded corners and a recessed border about 1cm from the outer edge. The other work on the original invoice is ‘Bookmaker’, which the Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased direct from the Peridot Gallery. (Inv. No. 673.1959). They currently describe the provenance as follows:  1894 - 1928, Medardo Rosso.  ? - 1959, Clothilde Longoni Rosso, Milan (the artist's daughter-in-law), probably inherited from the artist or the artist's son Francesco Rosso. October 1959, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchased through the Peridot Gallery, New York. The three works featured in The First Exhibition in America of Sculpture by Medardo Rosso at the Peridot Gallery and are all in the exhibition catalogue, a copy is included in the sale along with the original invoice and a letter from Clotilde Longoni Rosso authenticating the work. The present wax head is illustrated in Margaret Scolari Barr’s seminal work ‘Medardo Rosso’, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1963) page 33, and a photograph of the ‘Bookmaker’ featured on the front cover. Barr describes the head thus:  “Certainly the ‘Little Girl Laughing’ is a work that “everyone can understand”. The way versions are so shiny they suggest a child’s face well scrubbed. The principle of the single point of view, so obvious in the Rouart, is abandoned. The head stands free and can be seen from three sides. Even the back, though summarily treated, does not deny the volume of the skull.”  It is only in relatively recent years that scholarly research has shown that some of the sculptures thought to have been lifetime casts made by the artist were in fact authorised casts made legally after his death by his son Francesco, from the sculptor’s original plaster models. Dr Sharon Hecker’s fascinating article ‘The afterlife of sculptures: posthumous casts and the case of Medardo Rosso’ (Journal of Art Historiography Number 16 June 2017) discusses this in some depth, and uses the wax sculpture ‘Grande Riseuse’ in the Tate Gallery (inv. No. T04846) as her main example. ‘Grande Riseuse’ was thought to be a lifetime cast and had provenance going back to the Rosso family in the 1960’s, but following examination by Luciano Caramel, an Italian expert on Rosso and by the then-Chief Conservator of Sculpture, Derek Pullen in 1989; it is now considered to be a posthumous cast. In recent years, Paola Mola and Fabio Vittucci’s scholarly work on the sculptor’s oeuvre has validated these concerns, and in their 2007 catalogue raisonnée they divided the known works into those that had lifetime provenance and those that were un-documented or thought to have been cast by Francesco Rosso, as listed at the start of this footnote. Dr Hecker states in her article “Rosso’s materials, casting processes, and his ideas about his legacy are not fully understood. Whereas the art market and the law demand from experts a clear answer to the question of authenticity and attribution, I believe that Rosso’s case cannot be limited to a binary question, ‘whether a work is genuine or fake, either by the artist in question or not by him’. A more nuanced approach is necessary.” (p2. Opp. Cit.)  Other posthumous casts of Rosso’s works feature in museums throughout the world, for example the wax head ‘Ecce Puer’ (Behold the Boy) now in the Hirschhorn, Washington (inv. No. 66.4411), and the other ‘Bambina Ridente’ casts that are in the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.