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An Italian sculptor who came to Paris to work in 1884 and settled there in 1889, frequenting Rodin and Carrière, Medardo Rosso was a most unusual artist. He was unusual in his taste for wax, in his choice of subjects and in his treatment of surfaces. He is the only sculptor to be connected with Impressionism as his work conveys the notion of something glimpsed indistinctly.
This strange piece is thought to represent the artist's wife embracing their young son. The technical execution is typical of Rosso's work: he poured liquid wax into the hollow of a plaster mould, doubtless created from a clay original. The wax shell thus formed was reinforced with plaster and a metal stem added so that it could be hung vertically, as Rosso intended it to be viewed. The marks of workmanship such as seams and drips are deliberately left visible, which was a highly innovative approach for the period.
The splendid wax sculpture Aetas Aurea is one of the three versions that Medardo Rosso dedicated to the double portrait of his wife Giuditta Pozzi with their son Francesco. In this work, he explored the theme of the mother kissing her baby, but instead of creating a sculpture in the round, he chose to model only the front surface, neglecting the back and concentrating on the effects of light on the surfaces. The two faces are depicted as blending into one another, accentuating the intensity of the relationship between mother and son.
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