Modesty (La Pudicizia)

La Pudicizia, usually translated as Modesty and sometimes as Chastity or Veiled Truth, is a marble statue by the Venetian sculptor Antonio Corradini in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples. Completed in 1752, the year of the sculptor's death, it is a funerary monument to Cecilia Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, mother of Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, who died when her son was still an infant. Our catalogue has a fuller page on the same statue as Statue of Chastity.

What you are looking at

A young woman stands with her weight on one leg, her head slightly turned and lowered. She is covered from head to thigh by a single veil so fine that it seems to cling to her skin: we see the shape of her eyes, nose and lips through it, the line of her collarbones, her breasts and navel. Below the hips, the veil is gathered into a garland of roses that wraps around her body and falls in heavy folds.

Her left hand rests on a broken stone tablet, or stele, beside her, its top edge cracked off. In the photograph, the shine of the polished marble and the soft shadows of the folds make the veil seem almost wet.

How it was made

The veiled figure was Corradini's specialty, and he had carved several before coming to Naples, including a Veiled Woman in Venice. The effect is a trick of carving: the body is modeled first in full, and the "veil" is created by thin raised ridges and edges that follow the forms, with the surface beneath polished to read as skin. The illusion depends on the contrast between crisp folds and smooth flesh.

Meaning

Each statue in the chapel embodies a virtue and commemorates a member of the di Sangro family. Modesty, or chastity, was the virtue assigned to the prince's mother. The broken tablet refers to her early death, a life cut short. The veil itself is also read as a symbol of wisdom and truth hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated, in keeping with Raimondo di Sangro's interests in alchemy and Freemasonry; that reading comes from later interpreters rather than any statement by the patron. The base carries a relief of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene, the Noli me tangere ("do not touch me").

Where to see it

The statue stands in the Cappella Sansevero (Museo Cappella Sansevero) in Naples, close to Giuseppe Sanmartino's Veiled Christ, completed the following year after Corradini's death. For more marble virtuosity, see Canova's The Three Graces and our famous sculptures collection.