Word: dossena
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Died. Alceo Dossena, 60, Italian sculptor who was "born 500 years too late"; of a brain hemorrhage; in Rome. Sculptor Dossena, regarded as a genius in his own right, gained fame by being so adept at copying old masters that he fooled experts. His copies were sold as genuine, brought more than...
With the passing centuries the personality of Sculptor Donatello has suffered one curious change. Having finished a statue he is not satisfied with it until he has caused Alceo Dossena to take it out in the back yard, smash it with a hammer, skillfully round the edges of the break with fine abrasives, pickle it in acids and stains, then repair it with fetching crudity...
...Dossena doesn't copy those artists, he is those artists. He studied Donatello so thoroughly that he projected himself into Donatello's personality. ... He has a multiple personality...
...Dossena's master work was undoubtedly the sculpture of Simone Martini. Simone Martini (1284-1344) was a Sienese, a great painter, a friend of Poet Petrarch, but so far as the world knows he never produced any sculpture. To Alceo Dossena this seemed a great loss. Projecting himself into the personality of Simone Martini, he presented the world with a considerable body of Simone Martini sculpture, of such apparent antiquity and so true to the spirit of his paintings that it was accepted without question by dozens of critics. Two Dossena-Martinis were on view last week...
Since the disclosures of 1928 Alceo Dossena has attempted to confine himself to his own personality, but his modern sculpture seems strangely ineffective. With each of the antique Dossenas on sale last week will go an official document of the Italian Government attesting that it is a genuine fake...