20

Manifattura Poulard Prad, 1807 circa

Portrait of Luigi Vanvitelli

biscuit sketch
cm 29

not marked

The portrait bust, the only known sculptural representation of the great architect-set designer, was the subject of a

long and in-depth study by Angela Carola Perrotti, who drew up a technical sheet to accompany it
of the work.
The scholar among other things writes: "the sculpture faithfully reproduces the physiognomy of the great architect-set designer as it came to us through a painting, now in the Accademia di San Luca and(...)another painting in an oval frame, executed
by Giacinto Diano and preserved at the Royal Palace of Caserta"
Carola, who proposes a dating to the beginning of the Poulard Prad period, around 1807, believes the work extremely interesting for its uniqueness, as there never appears to have been such an important artist visually commemorated with other likenesses sculpted in memory of posterity. Furthermore, the importance of the work it also lies in the thesis that "its execution may have been suggested to arouse Joseph's interest Bonaparte towards the factory, within the project of establishing his residence as King of Naples in the Royal Palace of Caserta".

Comparative bibliography: A. Carola Perrotti Nineteenth-century Neapolitan porcelains Naples, 1990 pp 32-38
C. De Seta Luigi Vanvitelli Naples 1998
A. Carola Perrotti The porcelain of the Royal Ferdinand factory Naples 1978, p 247
A. Carola Perrotti Naples - Florence: story of a journey and a gift of porcelain in Fragile treasures of the Princes Florence, exhibition catalog 2018, p 102

**The work is in temporary artistic importation

€ 25.000,00 / 30.000,00
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