Giovanni Bastianini

Sculpture by Bastianini La danza

Giovanni Bastianini (born September 17, 1830, died June 29, 1868) is an Italian sculptor, forger, hero of the scandal.

Bastianini performed sculptures stylistically related to Renaissance art. From 1848 he was commissioned by Antonio Freppa, an Florentine antique dealer who commissioned him to sculpt the work of imitating the accomplishments of the old masters. Over time, he began to sell them without the knowledge of the creator as a work of unknown Renaissance artists.

In 1864 Freppa ordered Bastianini's bust depicting the Renaissance Florentine poet Girolamo Benivieni (1453-1542), paying him 350 francs. The model was used by an artist from a tobacco factory. Freppa then sold the sculpture for 700 francs without revealing it to the French collector M. de Novalis. The work quickly gained publicity as a prominent example of quattrocenta art, and its authorship was attributed to such artists as Verrocchio, Desiderio da Settignano and Mino da Fiesole. Two years later, the bust was bought for a record-breaking 14,000 francs at the Louvre museum at that time. On December 15, 1867, in the French Chronique des Arts, an article by Freppa appeared, revealing the actual attribution of the work. The publication sparked a storm in the critics of art at the time, and the director of the Louvre itself recognized Freppa's reports as false and for a long time defended the authenticity of the bust. Sam Bastianini, in order to prove that he is the true author of Benivieni's sculpture, proposed to perform the same bust and additionally 12 statues of the Roman emperors. For his death, the Louvre did not respond to this proposal.

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