Vintage Neapolitan Bust of the Blindfolded Goddess of Fortune with Coins — Alabaster or Marble-Effect Composite, Italy, 1950s–1960s

Description

The photograph does not prepare you for the presence of this piece. What arrives in the hand is nearly 1,600 grams of cool, smooth, pale stone-effect material — dense and settled on a surface with the quiet authority of sculpture rather than ornament. And the subject earns that weight.

This is La Dea Bendata — the Blindfolded Goddess — one of the most distinctive figures in the Neapolitan tradition of protective and lucky iconography. Unlike the Roman Fortuna, who is typically depicted with a cornucopia or a ship’s rudder, the Neapolitan version is rendered as a serene female bust, eyes bound with a smooth cloth, head tilted slightly upward as though listening rather than seeing. From her extended hand, a cascade of coins falls freely — not clutched or hoarded, but distributed with the impartial generosity of fortune itself. The blindfold is the key: she cannot see who receives her gifts, and that impartiality is precisely what gives her symbolic power. In Naples, to have her on your desk or in your entrance hall is to invite her attention without presuming upon it.

The material is a resin composite formulated to closely resemble alabaster or fine-grained marble, with natural-looking veining visible through the body of the piece — particularly in the shoulder and coin areas, where the warm pinkish-cream tones of the stone effect are most apparent. The surface is smooth and matte, without the artificial gloss of cheaper decorative casting. The modelling is accomplished: the facial features are refined and individuated, the flow of hair is rendered with genuine sculptural care, and the coins cascade in a convincingly naturalistic tumble rather than a simplified decorative motif.

Pieces of this type were produced in Naples from the postwar decades onward by workshops specialising in the city’s rich tradition of devotional and decorative figure-making — a tradition that produced objects intended to occupy the intersection between art, superstition, and daily life that is uniquely Neapolitan. This example, at its dimensions and weight, represents the better end of that production: a desk piece substantial enough to read as sculpture.

Dimensions: 18 × 15 × 12 cm (H × W × D)

Weight: 1,580 g

Material: Resin composite with alabaster/marble effect and natural veining

Condition: Good vintage condition

Origin: Naples, Italy, circa 1950s–1960s

Subject: La Dea Bendata — the Blindfolded Goddess of Fortune

Intended use: Desk ornament, gift, interior decoration