Figure 1.--Here we have a close-up image showing the "Little Neapolitan Fisherboy" a famous sculpture by François Rude, now in Louvre Museum. François Rude was a French Romantic sculptor. The cap worn by the boy is a traditional Neapolitan fishermen headwear. It was usually red. About the necklace, I think that it is a "scapular". It is an image of the Virgin Mary with a ribbon. Many people wore (and some old people still wear) scapular as a devotion sign.

Here we have a close-up image showing the "Little Neapolitan Fisherboy" a famous sculpture by François Rude, now in Louvre Museum. François Rude was a French Romantic sculptor. He was born in Dijon in 1784. He was a supported of Napoleon Bonaparte and this admiration was evident in his work. He won the "Prix de Rome" in 1812, but could not study there because of the Napoleonic Wars. After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Rude went into exile in Brussels. He returned to Paris in 1827. He presented the "Little Neapolitan Fisherboy" (Petit pêcheur napolitain) in the Paris artistic salon that took place in 1833 regaining his notoriety as a sculptor of public monuments. He died in Paris in 1855. The fisherboy wear only the cap and a necklace. His nudity is a romantic theme, but it can be historically correct. Generally poor Neapolitan children bathed and swam in the nude in those times. The cap worn by the boy is a traditional Neapolitan fishermen headwear. It was usually red. About the necklace, I think that it is a "scapular". It is an image of the Virgin Mary with a ribbon. Many people wore (and some old people still wear) scapular as a devotion sign. We note a church in Naples where boys dress up like fisherboys for the patron saint's festival.

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Created: 4:24 PM 1/20/2007
Last updated: 10:58 PM 8/14/2008