From July 4 to August 23, 2026, the Bardini Garden in Florence will host *The Briar Rose* (Rosa x centifolia), a bronze sculpture by French artist Jean-Marie Appriou. The initiative, sponsored by the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation and the CR Firenze Foundation through the Bardini and Peyron Monumental Parks Foundation, marks the beginning of a new collaboration between the two institutions and is part of the artist’s solo exhibition, *Canto infinito*, which is on view through August 23 in the Project Space at Palazzo Strozzi.
The work, created in 2022, draws inspiration from Edward Burne-Jones’s famous painting series *The Legend of Briar Rose*, dedicated to the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. In Appriou’s reinterpretation, the rose garden that protects the sleeping princess becomes a powerful contemporary symbol: a threshold that both separates and safeguards, transforming a fairy-tale image into a reflection on the concept of boundaries.
The sculpture depicts an intertwining mass of dense branches, crisscrossed by sharp thorns from which large bronze roses bloom. The work exerts a dual attraction, alternating between delicacy and menace, beauty and inaccessibility. What initially appears to be romantic vegetation gradually reveals itself as a barrier, capable of evoking both protection and exclusion. Through this ambivalence, Jean-Marie Appriou addresses deeply relevant themes, such as migration, uprooting, identity, and the sense of belonging. The reference to barbed wire emerges in a subtle yet incisive way, without ever sacrificing the poetic and visionary dimension that characterizes his artistic practice and leaves room for multiple interpretations.
Situated in the Bardini Garden, *The Briar Rose* establishes a dialogue with the landscape, the memory of the place, and the Pre-Raphaelite imagination. The garden thus becomes a meeting place where nature, myth, and contemporary art converge, where the sculpture blends with its surroundings and invites the public to reflect on the relationship between humanity, history, and the landscape.
The installation marks the first result of the collaboration between the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Fondazione CR Firenze, through the Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron, with the aim of extending the exhibition experience beyond museum spaces and highlighting one of Florence’s most evocative historic gardens.
“The Briar Rose” (Rosa x centifolia) will be on view at the Bardini Garden from July 4 to August 23, 2026, daily from 10:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Admission is included in the garden ticket (full price 10 euros, reduced price 5 euros, free for residents). The exhibition Jean-Marie Appriou. CANTO INFINITO is open to the public at the Project Space in Palazzo Strozzi through August 23, 2026, daily from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with extended hours on Thursdays until 11:00 p.m. Admission is free.
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| Jean-Marie Appriou’s Roses at the Bardini Garden: a sculpture inspired by a fairy tale that invites reflection |
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