Girardelli Tomb

The sepulchre is categorised in full within the eclectic culture that combines Egyptian stylistic elements with figures still linked to a certain classicism and examples of mannerist sculpture. The compositional centre is a portal, surmounted by a cobra, from which a female figure bearing a cartouche emerges, depicting the grief of the survivors (MILIEGI 1886). The woman's attention is attracted by the personification of Time, a winged elder holding an hourglass. The scene as a whole is dominated by a certain theatrical flavour.
Carlo Girardelli (1821-1891) commissioned this work from Donato Barcaglia, a sculptor from Pavia who made a name for himself at the 1877 Trieste Exhibition of Fine Arts, on which occasion the Revoltella museum purchased Woman Holding Back Time, a work that won an award at the 1876 Philadelphia World's Fair.
It is plausible to assume that he was one of the most sought-after sculptors at the time, especially for the creation of funerary monuments.
In 1877 the Brucker Holzknecht family already commissioned the Lombard artist their tomb and the Scrinzi family did the same in 1888.
The eternal bronze lamp was made, again to Barcaglia's design, in the Milanese foundry Barigozzi e Barzaghi, one of the most important of the time and active since 1868.
In that year, the Barigozzi brothers took over the Napoleonic foundry, specialising in bells. At the same time, a collaboration with the sculptor Francesco Barzaghi began for the creation of works such as the equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II (1896) in Milan's cathedral square.