Guanabara's Bay

Alfredo Ceschiatti's sculpture represents, in the form of a lying woman, the rock formations of the Pão de Açúcar and Pedra da Urca, in Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro. It makes reference to the legend about the Guanabara Indian, who, in love with the sun god Guaraci, asks him to take her with him, but the god turns her into the rock. Alfredo Ceschiatti was born in Belo Horizonte (MG), in 1918. He graduated from the National School of Fine Arts, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ). In 1944, at the request of Oscar Niemeyer, he made the bas-relief for the Church of São Francisco de Assis in Pampulha, in Belo Horizonte, from then on he started to make several sculptures to decorate the buildings designed by Niemeyer. The works "A Justiça" (The Justice) stand out in front of the Supreme Court building, the “Anjos” (Angels) and the “Evangelistas” (Evangelists) in the cathedral of Brasília (DF). Ceschiatti was also a professor of Drawing and Sculpture at the University of Brasilia. He died in Rio de Janeiro (RJ) in 1989.