Hamlet, 1890-1910
Niccolò Bazzanti was the son of Pietro, a sculptor who had taken over the workshop of Luigi Bozzolini – the last of a family of sculptors who had worked for the Corsini nobles of Florence. Unlike his father, who trained in the Bozzolini workshop, Niccolò attended the Florence School of Fine Arts and broadened his client base taking commissions from elsewhere including Britain. Following his death in 1869 the Bazzanti’s workshop passed to one of his assistants and is still in operation in Florence today producing sculpture as Galleria Pietro Bazzanti and Figlio.
The sculpture depicts Act 5 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ as the eponymous Prince of Denmark examines the skull of Yorrick – a court jester who he remembers most fondly from his childhood. Scholars believe that Yorrick could be a reference to the hugely popular Elizabethan comic actor Richard Tarlton (d.1588) who died not long before ‘Hamlet’ was first staged, as well as rising the concept of ‘Memento mori’ – that death is inevitable and life transient.
