Beautiful and classic figure of a fisherman with crab signed Giovanni De Martino. Giovanni De Martino was born in Naples in January 1870. Trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples under the guidance of Stanislao Lista, Gioacchino Toma, and Achille D’Orsi, from whom he learned the ability to portray the most realistic details using them on very young subjects. Still very young, he spent some time in Paris, where he performed small sculptural groups. In 1900, he was awarded at the Salon de Paris for a bronze of a fisherman. After his return to Naples, his works were dominated by sculptures depicting characteristic Neapolitan types, especially ragamuffins and children, after the works of his masters Achille D’Orsi and Vincenzo Gemito. Later, the dominant theme of his production was the world of childhood, in particular thoughtful, sad, skinny children were represented in his works, on whose faces emerged the signs of abandonment and suffering. He exhibited in Naples since 1892, in Paris in 1900 and 1901, in St. Petersburg in 1902, in Rome in 1903, in Venice in 1905 and later in 1922, 1924 and 1928, in Munich and Rimini in 1909. Then, in 1910, he exhibited at the Promotrice di Belle Arti in Naples, at the Fiorentina Primaverile in 1922. His teenage and child themes are rendered with such extraordinary efficacy that Benito Mussolini himself was greatly fascinated by them on the occasion of the Quadriennale of Rome in 1931; during the years of fascism, De Martino realised the importance of men’s physical appearance for the regime and thus created portraits of young more muscular and “powerful” people, with confident and smiley expressions, at the same time with a provocative demeanour. In 1916, a sculpture titled “Bimba pensosa” was purchased by the Regional Art Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples. He died in Naples on 3 March 1935. Origin: private collection. Professional packaging and insured shipping.