Flying Angel with Flute, Cast Resin, Verdigris and Rubbed Gilt, c. 1990–2005

The Piece

A flying angel playing a flute, cast in resin and hand finished in the antiqued, gilt-rubbed manner of the fine Italian-style angel figures of the 1990s. She is modeled in full relief as if caught mid-flight, body stretched horizontal, gown streaming behind her, head tilted back and the flute at her lips, with both wings spread wide above and behind. The gown is a soft verdigris green with a painted gilt border of scrolling acanthus and flower heads that runs around the hem and the sleeves, the hair is a long fall of gilt waves, and the wings are feathered in deep relief and finished in a chalky white rubbed back to show an antique gold beneath. A loop at the crown of the head takes a hook or a ribbon, and the figure is shown here on a brass wire easel that is included.

The finish is the point of the piece. The gold on the gown border, the hair and the wing feathers has been laid over the color and then rubbed and softened by hand so that it reads as old gilding worn through, with the green of the gown and the white of the wings showing through at the high points, and the surface has the dry, matte, slightly dusty quality of a plaster or terracotta devotional figure rather than a glossy modern casting. The face is painted with a pale complexion, rouged lips and a calm, closed-eyed expression.

The figure is complete, with both wings, both hands and the flute all present and the hanging loop intact. There are two small chips to the paint at the hand holding the flute where the white resin shows through, noted honestly, and light rubbing to the gilt consistent with the finish. The piece is otherwise clean and sound.

History & Provenance

Angel figures of this type were the high end of the gift and collectible trade of the 1990s and early 2000s, when a handful of makers, Roman's Seraphim Classics line, the Fontanini studio's resin work and a crowd of Italian and American studios in their wake, revived the baroque devotional angel in cast resin with hand-applied antiqued finishes meant to recall gilded and polychromed wood. The flying musician angel, hung above a crèche, a mantel or a doorway, is one of the oldest motifs in that tradition, going back to the carved and gilt angels that hung from the ceilings of Italian and German churches, and the gilt-bordered gown and rubbed-gold wings on this example are a direct echo of that work.

No maker's mark is visible and the figure is offered as an unattributed cast resin angel of the period. The dating rests on the material and the finish rather than style alone: the cast resin, the hand-rubbed antiqued gilt, the verdigris and chalk palette and the hanging loop are all consistent with manufacture between about 1990 and 2005.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A flying angel is one of the few decorative objects that works both on a wall and on a shelf. Hung from a hook above a doorway, a mirror or a mantel she reads as a fragment of a church ceiling; set on her easel on a console or a bookshelf she is a small sculpture in green and gold. The verdigris and antique gilt palette suits a traditional room, a Christmas table or a layered, collected interior equally well, and she pairs naturally with giltwood, old frames and the Florentine metalwork of the same taste. For a shop or designer client she is the well finished, complete angel figure that moves at the holidays and holds its place the rest of the year.