Piccirilli Brothers

In 1888, Giuseppe Piccirilli (1844–1910),[1] a well-known stone carver in Massa and a veteran of Garibaldi's Unification war, brought his family to New York City.

The family lived in a brownstone on 142nd Street in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx and set up a workshop next to their home that eventually occupied an entire city block.

The brothers became the carvers of choice for many American sculptors of the time including Daniel Chester French and Paul Wayland Bartlett.

Besides their work as carvers the Piccirilli Brothers also created architectural detailing and embellishments for many public and private buildings.

One of the great losses in American art history occurred when the Piccirilli Brothers studio quietly closed its doors in 1945 and no move was made to secure their records, so the accounts of much of what they had accomplished were lost.