The portrait is the first example in the cemetery of iconography that would become particularly widespread in funerary art at the end of the 1880s, according to the demands of "bourgeois realism" in those years.
The deceased, Enea Cocchi, "young man of generous heart, alert of mind, hope and joy of his family, taken when 18 years old on July 1, 1867" as noted on the inscription, is depicted in a relaxed pose, sitting in an chair, a small book in hand and dressed in modern clothes.
The work is thematically opposed to that of Bolognini Amorini behind it. The former is an expression of the cultural needs of the emerging entrepreneurial middle class; the latter is a symbol of conservative aristocracy, needing to be celebrated with works of a classical taste. The statue is an early masterpiece by Carlo Monari (1831-1918), who in the following years would be among the most active in Certosa.