The newly-born Kingdom of Italy celebrated its illustrious people with monuments erected in city squares. The Opificio took part in the celebrations realizing precious miniature statues of famous Italian personalities.
In 1873-74 Paolo Ricci, expert carver of the workshop, realized this small statue portraying Cimabue, using various types of chalcedonies.
The artwork was inspired by the celebrative statuary then in vogue, with a gothic style base in paonazzetto di Fiandra (a kind of marble from the Flanders) with panels of amethyst quartz.
Paolo Ricci realized an ideal portrait of the painter, inspired by the figures depicted in fourteenth-century frescoes of the Cappellone degli Spagnoli in Santa Maria Novella. The artist had the difficult task of reviving the laborious technique of mosaic sculpture, which had not been produced since the reign of Cosimo III.