/en/artist-detail/240013/duchesse-adele-d-affry-dite-marcell
/en/artist-detail/240013/duchesse-adele-d-affry-dite-marcell
Duchesse Adèle D'AFFRY DITE MARCELL
Marcello, whose real name was Adèle d’Affry, was the Duchess of Castiglione Colonna. She was born on 6 July 1836 in Fribourg into a Swiss aristocratic family. She was the eldest daughter of Count Louis d’Affry and Lucie de Maillardoz.
Her artistic education began at a very young age with lessons in drawing and watercolour under the guidance of the painter Joseph Auguste Dietrich, and continued with modelling classes in the studio of the Swiss sculptor Heinrich Max Imhof.
On the death of her husband, she found refuge at the Convent of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, at the Trinité-des-Monts. Here, her artistic vocation grew, and she re-established contact with Imhof, which gradually confirmed her desire to become an artist.
In 1859, our artist travelled to Paris and began to move in the glittering society of the Second Empire. Her social standing enabled her to frequent the legitimist salons of the Faubourg Saint-Germain whilst allowing her to pursue a rigorous artistic education. She continued to study various forms of art, notably animal drawing at the National Museum of Natural History with the animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. She was supervised by the artist Auguste Clésinger.
In 1861, she applied to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but her application was rejected, as the institution remained closed to women. Two years later, she decided to exhibit her works at the Paris Salon under the male pseudonym ‘Marcello’. There she presented three sculptures: *Bianca Capello*, a marble bust; the Portrait of Count Gaston de Nicolaï, a marble bust; and the bust of the Duchess of San Césario, in wax. The bust of Bianca Capello caused an immediate sensation, and the name Marcello was soon on everyone’s lips. She thus caught the attention of Empress Eugénie, who granted her a place at court and, in 1865, commissioned an official portrait of her.
Adèle developed a body of work characterised by expressive power, simplicity of form and a profound psychological sensitivity, thus blending idealism and realism. Her career, though brilliant, was relatively short-lived. Suffering from tuberculosis, she died on 16 July 1879 in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy. She left behind her unfinished memoirs and a list of her sculptures, which she bequeathed to the State of Fribourg on the condition that a museum dedicated to her work be established.