Cranari, J. (active 1880s; Italian?)
Perseus
Marble, size unknown
Presented by James Chapman, 1885; de-accessioned and transferred to Ballarat, 1943
Ballarat, Botanical Gardens
In the 1940s, this statue was transferred to Ballarat, where it joined other Victorian-era statues acquired in the 1880s and later.
The figure was photographed recently, as shown here, in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens hothouse (tastefully shrouded by foliage), after relocation from the main street of Ballarat in 2010.
To date, no information has been found on the artist.
Refs.
AR 1884, p.36 (as received March 1885); SB, p.67 (Statues); NGV 1894, p.133 (VI.Rotunda, no.41); NGV 1905, p.79 (II.Stawell Gallery, no.174)
Cranari is not listed in either AKL or Bénézit. The SLV holds an early “stereograph” by Boake showing this work in the Stawell Gallery in c.1905 (H82.261/21; reproduced online). For the statue in Ballarat, see http://visitballarat.com.au/media/932163/walking%20trails%20brochure%202011.pdf, and https://www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/5447824224/in/photostream/ (photo reproduced here, by raaen99, dated Jan.2011). For the other early statuary in Ballarat, notably the set of Carrara marble figures donated by Thomas Stoddart in 1884, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat_Botanical_Gardens; and Radford, Early Australian Sculpture (1976)