Vittoria Caldoni

Vittoria Candida Rosa Caldoni (6 March 1805 in Albano Laziale – 1872?/1890?[1] in Russia) was an Italian artists model. She was the most popular model among the German artists residing in Rome in the early nineteenth-century; especially those associated with the Nazarene movement. Over 100 paintings with her image have survived.

Portrait by Friedrich Overbeck
Portrait by Victor Orsel
Portrait by Alexander Ivanov

Life

She was the sixth of nine children born to a winemaking family, and one of five that survived to adulthood. At the age of fifteen, she was "discovered" by August Kestner and was brought to Rome to work as a model. This proved to be very profitable for her family, enabling them to move into larger quarters and begin renting rooms to travelers; mostly artists.

One of their tenants was an aspiring Ukrainian painter named Grigory Ignatevich Lapchenko. She married him in 1839 and emigrated to Russia, where they apparently had at least one son. Grigory became seriously ill with an unspecified condition that affected his eyesight, so he had to give up his plans to become a painter and worked as a minor government official.

Her life in Russia was not well documented (which was common there at that time), so no reliable information exists regarding her date and place of death. It is assumed that her life there was mundane and financially difficult.

Work as a model

Many artists considered her to be an ideal female figure. She was generally portrayed in local costume or allegorical garb, often with attributes that referred to representations of the Madonna.

The exact number of paintings she sat for is unknown and many were destroyed, especially during World War II. There are also a few portrait busts. Complicating matters is the fact that many images of her were not done from life. A portrait of her by Pablo Picasso is an obvious example of this.[2]

Among the artists who are known to have engaged her services as a model, one may mention:

References
  1. Re: Gold, pg.159; Koeltz says "c.1890", without citing a source.
  2. Koeltz, pg.283 (fig.80), pg.310.

Further reading and sources
  • Rita Giuliani: Vittoria Caldoni Lapčenko. La «fanciulla di Albano» nell'arte, nell'estetica e nella letteratura russa (The "Girl of Albano" in Art, Aesthetics and Russian Literature), Gangemi (2013) ISBN 88-492-2465-6
  • Amrei I. Gold: Der Modellkult um Sarah Siddons, Emma Hamilton, Vittoria Caldoni und Jane Morris - Ikonographische Analyse und Werkkatalog. Dissertation. University of Münster (2009).
  • Ulrike Koeltz: Vittoria Caldoni – Modell und Identifikationsfigur des 19 Jahrhunderts, in the "Europäische Hochschulschriften Reihe XXVIII – Kunstgeschichte". Vol.436. Frankfurt (2010). ISBN 978-3-631-59944-0
  • Rome Today/Castelli Today: "Festa della donna: Albano dedica una strada a Vittoria Caldoni" (Albano names a street after Vittoria Caldoni) 8 March 2013.
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