On this day in 1852, self-taught artist Vincenzo Gemito was born in Naples. Left at a foundling hospital, Gemito was adopted by a poor artisan who apprenticed him to a sculptor in 1861. He showed his Fisherboy at the Paris Salon in 1877, which brought praise and patrons. A mental breakdown ten years later led him to withdraw from public life, but he resumed work around 1909 with a focus on ancient art like that in the Naples archaeological museum.

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