Veiled Lady at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA

  Rafaello Monti (1818-1881) is rarely mentioned in standard Italian surveys of nineteenth-century sculpture. It is as though his self-willed exile to London for most of his working career banned him from any recognition in his native country. Yet, he was one of the period's most prolific sculptors, and he continued to portray, in his inevitably sentimental style, themes dear to the Italian Risorgimento.1Born in Ticino, Monti was brought up in Milan. His training at the Brera Academy introduced him to Pietro Magni and Vincenzo Vela, disciples of the emergent Scuola Lombarda, or "Modern School of Milan," which developed in the '40s. The group sponsored a realist art steeped in social and political implications which was, above all, dedicated to the overthrow of Canova's influence on sculpture. Whereas Monti, because of his travels to Vienna, Budapest, and eventually England, lacked the group's militant zeal, his works nevertheless were influenced by their greater reliance on baroque de