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Restorer Gabriella Tonini gets technological with the De Fauveau restoration
Mum's the word
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Who was the woman who made De Fauveau's career possible? Felicie de Fauveau’s marble tribute to Anne de la Pierre, completed in 1859, realistically portrays the artist’s mother, her most loyal supporter. In Paris in the 1820s, de la Pierre’s reputation had facilitated her daughter’s debut as a high-society artist. Years later, when Felicie was charged for her insurrectional activities Anne also went to Vandea to share in her daughter’s destiny. The pair lived for months in the same prison cell. Together they later settled in Florence and established Felicie’s studio in Via degli Serragli, not far from the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine where the sepulchral monument still stands today in the ancient cloister. While in Florence, De Fauveau gained several lucrative commissions for sepulchral art throughout the Italian peninsula. Her high-ranking extended family had withdrawn their economic support considering a woman’s desire for for-pay commissions a punishable act of ‘insolent pride’. De Fauveau had responded to such accusations with fiery conviction, ‘Give up my dignity!’ the artist exclaimed, ‘Know that an artist, such as I am is, a gentleman.’