Bust of Marie Casimire

A remarkably modest sculpted iconography of Marie Casimire (1641–1716), King Jan III Sobieski's wife and thus the Queen of Poland. This queen's bust carved in the Carrara marble (total height of the statue: 74 cm), made in ca. 1680, the bust represents Marie Casimire devoid of royal majesty and glory, but simply as a beautiful woman. Calm in structure, he statue is marked by meticulous decorativeness in position and modelling of details discerned in the model's dress and hairstyle, with the sculptor successfully recreating the illusion of fabric-like structure of silk and lace. Although the queen's facial features were reconstructed with individual characteristics of a portrait, they remain cool, dispassionate, somehow stiffened by smooth eyeballs with no pupils. The gentle and refined bust is modelled flat, nearly graphically, as if it was meant to be viewed only from the front.