Haskell, Francis, Professor of the History of Art, Oxford,
An Italian Patron of French Neo-classic Art: the Zaharoff lecture for 1972.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972. Review copy. VG PB. Review news clipping attached to front endpaper, rough draft of review laid in, as well as request from publisher for copy. Sommariva sprang apparently from nowhere to fame and fortune starting probably as a barber's assistant to become virtual dictator of the Milan of the Cisalpine Republic creating an immense fortune very rapidly by speculation. In 1806 he retired to Paris to find a home where he would meet neither relations nor friends, nor memories. The rest of his life was spent filling his hotel in the rue Basse des Ramparts and the Villa Carlotta on Lake Como with a remarkable collection of works by contemporary artists but he is especially notable for introducing Canova and other Italian or Italianizing sculptors into the French capital.
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