In his conception of Phryne, Jean-Léon Gérôme emerges as a direct and decisive point of reference. Francesco Barzaghi’s sculpture explicitly draws inspiration from Gérôme’s painting Phryne Before the

Areopagus of 1861, a work that achieved considerable acclaim. Barzaghi translates into three dimensions the pivotal moment imagined by Gérôme: the instant of unveiling, when Phryne’s nudity becomes an

argument and the viewer’s gaze effectively replaces that of the tribunal.

The figure stands upright, her body gently inclined in an elegant torsion. The raised right arm appears simultaneously to shield and to reveal the face, while the left hand descends toward the thigh in an ambiguous gesture poised between modesty and surrender. This tension between concealment and revelation forms the expressive core of the composition. The anatomical treatment, precise yet softened, reflects a restrained naturalism characteristic of Milanese sculpture of the 1860s and 1870s, avoiding both excessive pathos and cold academicism.

The sculpture was conceived as a model produced in multiple versions, differing in scale as well as in certain ornamental details. A monumental version of approximately 170 cm is documented by the engraving published in L’Esposizione Universale del 1867 illustrata, corresponding to the work exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867. This version is distinguished by a specific treatment of the jewellery, whose typology differs markedly from that adopted in later variants.

Another version of similar dimensions, now preserved at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan (acquired after its presentation at the Second National Exhibition of Milan in 1872), features a different ornamental system: the jewellery there corresponds to a stabilised typology that also appears in the versions shown in Vienna in 1873 and at the Promotrice exhibition in Genoa in 1878.

A reduced version of approximately 110 cm is held at the Museo del Castello d’Albertis in Genoa, demonstrating that the model also circulated in more intimate formats, independently of major institutional commissions.

The present sculpture, measuring 130 cm in height, occupies an intermediate position within this dimensional gradation. It differs clearly from the monumental 170 cm versions intended for world exhibitions and public acquisitions, while exceeding the more modest scale of the 110 cm example in Genoa. Its intermediate size suggests a context distinct from strictly museum-bound commissions, likely conceived for a cultivated private setting, while retaining the full formal ambition and expressive power

of the original model.

According to documentation provided by the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Genoa, the model held by the

museum, displaying the same ornamental characteristics as the present version, would date to 1865, the

year of the exhibition held in Porto, where Phryne was exhibited.

Contemporary critical reception was notably emphatic.