Clizia in love with the Sun

Recently acquired, the sculpture was made in 1838 by the Veronese sculptor Innocenzo Fraccaroli (1805-1882), an important exponent of Italian Neoclassicism. The work was probably commissioned to the sculptor by the family Miniscalchi-Erizzo; in the front of the base is in fact the coat of arms of the family.
The nymph Clizia is represented as a young girl half-naked, wrapped in the lower part by a soft drapery, with her hand high to cover her eyes not to be blinded by the Sun, of which she is in love despite being betrayed by him. She spends her days following the path of the Sun chariot, until the moment when, consumed by pain, she turns into sunflower, or more precisely into heliotrope, a plant already known at the time of the ancient Greeks.