page_title: Capodimonte porcelain
section_title: Capodimonte, 1743–1759
hierarchical_section_title: Capodimonte porcelain / Characteristics / Capodimonte, 1743–1759
caption_attribution_description: Italian, Naples; Figure group; Ceramics-Porcelain
context_page_description: Capodimonte porcelain is porcelain created by the Capodimonte porcelain manufactory, which operated in Naples, Italy, between 1743 and 1759. Capodimonte is the most outstanding factory for early Italian porcelain, the Doccia porcelain of Florence being the other main Italian factory. Capodimonte is most famous for its moulded figurines.
  The porcelain of Capodimonte, and later Naples, was a "superb" translucent soft-paste, "more beautiful" but much harder to fire than the German hard-pastes, or "a particularly clear, warm, white, covered with a mildly lustrous glaze". The Capodimonte mark was a fleur-de-lys in blue, or impressed in relief inside a circle.
  The entire Capodimonte factory was moved to Madrid when its founder King Charles inherited the Spanish throne from his brother in 1759. Strictly speaking, this was the end of "Capodimonte porcelain", but the reputation of the factory's products was so high that the name is often claimed and used for porcelain made in other factories in or around Naples. The first of these was the new royal factory established by Charles' son Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, which manufactured from 1771 until 1806.
context_section_description: The true Capodimonte wares of the short period between 1743 and 1759 included tableware of the usual types, figures, and the Porcelain boudoir of Maria Amalia of Saxony entirely made of porcelain panels in a chinoiserie style, originally made for the Palace of Portici (1757–59), but now moved to the Capodimonte Palace.  The same team later made the rooms in Spain at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez (1763–65) and the main Palacio real in Madrid (1770s).  As with other factories of the period, Meissen porcelain was taken as the main model.
  There are good records from the 1740s, but after that little documentation survives.  The shell-shaped snuffbox, modelled in low relief with further small shells and seaweed, was a Gricci design introduced in the first year which remained popular. The inside of the lid was painted with a portrait or other subject, and a goldsmith added mounts and a hinge.  
  The popular figures of ordinary people were introduced early, and there are large numbers of models; since Buen Retiro concentrated on these, the difficulties in telling Neapolitan and Madrid pieces apart mostly affect these.  Figures tend to have "exceptionally small heads, wide hands and feet, and restrained painting of both features and costume.  A prevailing sense of worried good humor is conveyed by coal-speck eyes, and short, swiftly-drawn eyebrows". They are modelled "with an unerring eye for pose and gesture".  Often colour is only used to define the edges of garments and objects. The soft paste used did not allow as much sharp definition or as thin elements as German hard-paste, and the modellers had to adapt their style accordingly.
  The pottery-seller illustrated, adapting a print after a drawing by Annibale Carracci, is one of a series described in the factory records as figure che rappresentano poveri ("figures of poor people"), although unlike later so-called "Capodimonte" figures, their clothing is neat and clean.  Otherwise such subjects of vendors were called la voci di Napooli (street-cries of Naples).  An exception to the general good humour of the series is a figure of a mutilated war veteran beggar, with only one of his limbs complete, and one eye.  Only a single example of this is known, which sold for £30,000 in 2012.  In the same auction a Mouse-catchers group sold for £73,250. 
  In Caselli's style for painted scenes "compositions were built by gradations of very fine stippling in which much use was made of soft grays and browns", as in the jar with Pulcinellas illustrated.  The chinoiserie palette, used in the porcelain room and other pieces was much stronger.  Apart from the Casellis, G. della Torre was a painter who specialized in landscapes and figures, including battle-scenes. His clouds are often distinctively coloured "in violet and pale orange-red" (see saucer in gallery).  Given the scale of production, and the other modellers and painters recorded, curators and scholars are now less certain in attributing particular works to the individual hands of the main designers and painters, although it is clear they established the styles and supervised production closely. Gricci is only known to have signed two large religious figures, and as was normal for the period, painters did not sign their work.
  Capodimonte porcelain, 1743 to 1759
caption: Mouse Catchers, modelled by Giuseppe Gricci, 1755–1759
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