E. Villanis (1858-1914), Bronze

Bronze sculpture with brown-green patina on a rotating plinth, representing allegory to sculpture, signed on the shoulder of the E. Villanis bust. Period late nineteenth. Emmanuel VILLANIS was born on December 12, 1858 at 11 rue des Os-Rongés in Lille, son of Félix Louis Villanis, professor of lithography, and of Anne Lavioja, his wife. The Villanis family left Lille and returned to Italy after the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy by Victor Emmanuel II. The work of Vincenzo Vicario and the dictionary of Alfonso Panzetta tell us that Villanis began his artistic career in Italy and had as master Odoardo Tabacchi. According to Vincenzo Vicario, he presented a bust entitled Alda at the Milan exhibition in 1881, the portrait of Silla in Rome in 1883, a statuette named Nanà and a project for a funeral monument in Turin in 1884. He presented at the exhibition of Brera Academy, Milan, a plaster head titled Fischio, another titled Studio dal vero and a plaster bust titled Epos. Villanis exhibited at the Salon of the Society of French Artists from 1886 and settled permanently in Paris, 13 rue André-del-Sarté. At the Universal Exhibition of 1889, he obtained an honorable mention for a plaster statue "La Sourcière", an honorable mention also in 1892 at the Salon where he exhibited two plaster sculptures: Miss Bob Walter in his repertoire and Madeleine at the Passage du Christ.