Bust of the Roman emperor Nero, part of the Julio-Claudia dinasty

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Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
Bust of the Roman emperor Nero, part of the Julio-Claudia dinasty
1775

About the Item

The plaster bust under discussion here belongs to a set of ten busts of Roman emperors, eight in terracotta and two in plaster, from the Torlonia family's collections in Rome . The numerous Classical sculptures and all of the models based on Classical work, in plaster and in terracotta, which were found in Cavaceppi's workshop when he died in 1799 and of which the Accademia di San Luca in Rome had been named sole heir, entered the Torlonia collections for the sum of 10,000 scudi in 1800 . The workshop material – now split between several private collections andthe Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia in Rome – acquired by Marquis Giovanni Torlonia through a holding company whose shareholders included Giuseppe Valadier and Vincenzo Pacetti, the man behind the whole operation and the drafter of two inventories dated 1800 and 1802 listing all of the works (1,115 pieces) purchased by the company through the Marquis Torlonia , included a large number of plaster copies of Classical work, Classical sculptures, and above all, the majority of the terracotta models that Cavaceppi had made in the course of his long and prestigious career alongside Johan Joachim Winckelmann, Giambattista Piranesi and Anton Raphael Mengs, with whom he had shared the protection of one of the most learned and sophisticated collectors of antiquities in the 18th century, Cardinal Alessandro Albani. The "Libro delle sculture della Collezione Cavaceppi che sono in società delli Signori Marchese Torlonia, Vincenzo Pacetti e Giuseppe Valadier" ["Book of the sculptures in the Cavaceppi Collection which are in the company of Messrs. Marquis Torlonia, Vincenzo Pacetti and Giuseppe Valadier"], written by Pacetti in 1800 before Torlonia had finalised the purchase and now part of the Lanciani Collection in the Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte del palazzo di Venezia in Rome (Lanciani Manuscript 5), records under number 143 "Twelve small busts of the Caesars" . The bust of Nero under discussion here belongs to this set, of which ten busts are still extant while two have been lost.Other terracotta busts of Roman emperors by Cavaceppi – based on Classical models but larger than the one under discussion here from the Torlonia collections, although they clearly share the same technique and style – are to be found in the Museo del Palazzo di Venezia in Rome. They, too, come from the Torlonia collections, having entered the collection of singer Evan Gorga early in the 20th century, a collection which Gorga subsequently made over to the Italian state in 1949 to settle his debts with the inland revenue. Cavaceppi is thought to have used these small terracotta busts, like all the plaster or terracotta models based on Classical originals found in his workshop, not simply as tools for the study of Classical sculpture but as a sample collection and as models for his workshop subsequently to translate into marble for wealthy patrons on the Grand Tour and for the Roman aristocracy, or for casting in bronze by such celebrated Roman foundries as that of the Zoffoli family, with whom Cavaceppi is recorded as enjoying professional ties of precisely that nature. The fact that both the smaller and the larger terracotta busts were used for this purpose also explains why Cavaceppi occasionally modelled them without a plinth (albeit not in this instance, since this bust still has its original plinth). This allowed him not to undermine their potential as archetypes subsequently translated into marble through the complex procedure of wire transport or into bronze through the creation of wax models.In the course of his long, prolific and prestigious career, Cavaceppi collected in his celebrated workshop – situated between Via del Babuino and Vicolo di Gesù e Maria, a goal invariably sought out by the "Grand Tourists" – a considerable quantity of sculptural material and terracotta models based on Classical sculptures, which not only served as a day-to-day tool of the trade, as we have seen, but was also intended to form the core of an ambitious plan, which in the event never came to fruition, to establish a private academy alongside his sculpture workshop.

Creator:
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716 - 1799)
Creation Year:
1775
Dimensions:
Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Width: 11.82 in (30 cm)
Medium:
Plaster
Period:
Late 18th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Rome, IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU95913570941

Bust of the Roman emperor Nero, part of the Julio-Claudia dinasty

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