Giovanni Maria Benzoni

Place: Rome

Born: 1809

Death: 1873

Biography:

Giovanni Maria Benzoni was an Italian neoclassical sculptor born in Rome in 1809 and died in 1873. He was trained in Rome, where he later set up his own workshop. Benzoni designed some of his sculptures with a production line in mind using other sculptors to produce the works in order to satisfy a growing demand for people on the Grand Tour who wanted cultural mementos to take back home. He produced sculpture for the funeral monument to the Roman Catholic Italian Cardinal Angelo Mai. Benzoni also created the white marble image of Saint Anne and the child Blessed Virgin Mary which was granted a decree of pontifical coronation on 9 September 1877 after his death by Pope Pius IX, now enshrined within the Apt Cathedral of Saint Anne. Sculptures by Benzoni of the Veiled Rebecca can be found in the Salar Jung Museum (Hyderabad, India), High Museum of Art (Atlanta, Georgia) and the Berkshire Museum (Pittsfield, Massachusetts). Examples of his Flight from Pompeii can be found in Todmorden Town Hall, Yorkshire and the statuary pavilion at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, Victoria Australia. Examples of his Young Dionysus With a Nymph can be found at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston Texas.