A LATE 19TH CENTURY ITALIAN MARBLE BUST OF AN ORIENTALIST MAIDEN 'LA SULAMITIDE (THE SHULAMITE)' DATED 1890 and signed indistinctly to the reverse 'E. F***alini', the youthful girl wearing a decorative headdress over her long flowing, curly hair, with a border of coins and wearing a necklace of coins and a dress with lace frills,

55cm high

This finely carved bust is very similar in style to the Orientalist sculpture produced and sold in the Bazzanti Gallery in Florence in the last quarter of the 19th century by the renowned sculptors of the day such as Cesare Lapini, Ferdinando Vichi and Guglielmo Pugi, as well as by Pietro Bazzanti himself (see Sotheby's, 21 November 2007 lot 364 for a bust of the same subject sold for 4500 euros).

Other Italian sculptors such as Raffaello Romanelli and Pasquale Romanelli also produced works of the same subject, see Romanelli's marble Sulamitide at Sotheby's, 12 July 2017, lot 46 (£40,000 - 60,000).

The subject of the marble, Sulamitide, is inspired by the 18^th century author Giuseppe Maria Ercolani’s play La Sulamitide boschereccia sagra di Neralco - pastore arcade, published in 1732, about a son of the king of Egypt during the time of Solomon.