Antonio Corradini

Born in Venice,[1] Corradini spent most of his early career working in his hometown for various patrons in the Venetian Republic, as well as in Dresden and Saint Petersburg.

[1] Corradini was apprenticed to the sculptor Antonio Tarsia (1663 - ca 1739), for whom he worked probably for four or five years starting at the age of fourteen or fifteen (this was the norm at the time).

In 1716 he was commissioned to execute a monument to Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, Marshal of the Venetian forces for the defence of island of Corfu.

Corradini completed the outdoor marble statuary group Nessus and Deianira in 1716 for a patron in Venice but a few years later, it was bought for the Grosser Garten in Dresden.

The Apollo Flaying Marsyas and Zephyrus and Flora (1723-1728) are two life-sized marble sculptures originally commissioned by the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong for the gardens of the Höllandisches Palais in Dresden (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

Charles VI employed him in the decoration of the Josephbrunnen and, later, Corradini sculpted four figures for the two side altars below the dome of the Karlskirche and designed and supervised the construction of a wooden theater for animal fights called the Hetztheater.

In Rome, he devoted himself to sculpting the Vestal Virgin Tuccia, achieved without a commission from any patron (it remained unsold), and was involved in the problem of the restoration of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

Corradini's work on the chapel is a very complex and intricate decoration of statues, pedestals, altar frontals, round and bas-reliefs, for which he prepared 36 bozzetti in clay.

In 1750, he completed Veiled Truth (also called Modesty or Chastity), a tomb monument dedicated to Cecilia Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, mother of Raimondo di Sangro.

Not only is it a technically inspired work, but the conceit of modesty shielded by the flimsiest of veils creates an alluring but ironic tension, perhaps one somewhat unmerited for a chapel funerary monument, but one that does compel remembrance.

Monument to Johann Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg, Marshall of the Venetian forces, for the island of Corfu
Emperor Charles VI as "Hercules Musarum" (1735) in the Austrian National Library
Detail of The Vestal Virgin Tuccia (1743) in the Palazzo Barberini , Rome
Corradini's Veiled Christ terracotta bozzetto in the Certosa di San Martino . Corradini died before the full statue could be started, and Giuseppe Sammartino 's completed marble is exhibited in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples.