* Naples 6.8.1845 - † Naples 8.4.1929..

The son of a small landowner, in 1857 he entered the Regio Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples, where he studied under the guidance of the sculptor Tito Angelini (1806–78). He first exhibited in 1863, with the terracotta Wounded Soldier of Garibaldi (Naples, Capodimonte), a work inspired by Garibaldi’s campaign against the Bourbon rulers of Naples. D’Orsi’s main interest, however, was in subjects from everyday life, and this allied him to the contemporary artistic and literary current of Verismo. Among his works of this kind were his plaster statue of A Fisherman (1864; untraced) and the Old Woman at the Grave (terracotta, 1876; Naples, Accad. B.A.), which have affinities with sculptures by his principal rival, Vincenzo Gemito.