Giovanni Duprè
The Temptation of Adam

“I would be eternally grateful to you if Adam’s head were to have your features” the Sienese aristocrat Mario Bianchi Bandinelli wrote to Giovanni Duprè in 1852, referring to his commission from the artist of a marble relief depicting The Temptation of Adam. A detailed collecting history of the sculpture, previously unpublished letters and a stylistic analysis of both the work itself and the artistic environment in which it was conceived, written by Ettore Spalletti, one of the world’s leading experts on Duprè and the author of the monograph on the sculptor.