﻿^- Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I am Xavier Salomon, the
Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator
here at the Frick Collection.
Each year, the Frick Collection invites
a prominent scholar to deliver
the Alex Gordon Lecture.
Mr. Gordon was a collector
of European drawings
and paintings of pre-Columbian
art and of Russian icons,
and established a library that comprises
several thousand volumes.
Mister Gordon's legacy
is one of education,
a mission that is so dear to the Frick.
His estate has funded scholarship in many
art historical fields,
and has supported programs
at the Morgan Library,
at the Neuberger Museum of
Art, Columbia University,
in addition to his generous
patronage here at the Frick.
We are deeply grateful to Mr. Gordon
and to his family for
their invaluable support.
It is, therefore, a huge
pleasure for me to introduce
this year's speaker for
the Alex Gordon Lecture,
Professor Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios.
He is an internationally
recognized art historian
and the world expert on
Italian 17th and 18th Century
decorative arts.
Born in Santiago de Cuba,
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios
studied at the University of Havana,
at the Sorbonne in Paris,
and at the University of Florence,
where he was a pupil of
one of the most influential
Italian art historians of the
past century, Roberto Longhi.
His PhD thesis was on the
arts at the Court of Naples,
a topic that he has worked
on for most of his career.
He was living in Europe
when the Communist regime
seized power in Cuba,
and decided not to
return to his birthplace.
He settled in Italy, first
in Florence and then in Rome,
and also lived for some time in Paris.
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios's work
on Italian decorative arts
is well known worldwide,
and hardly needs an introduction.
He has authored a large quantity of books
on Italian and French decorative arts
including catalogs for
the Louvre, the Prado,
the Cuerno, and the Vatican museums.
Amongst his most celebrated
books, just to name a few,
are the two volumes Il Tiempo
del Gusto of 1984 and 1986,
Il Gusto de Principe of 1983,
L'Armadio della Meraviglie in 1997,
and the Arredi e Ornamenti
alla Corte di Roma of 2004.
He has worked on countless exhibitions
and has published a
prodigious number of articles
for scholarly magazines such
as the Burlington Magazine,
Apollo, Paragone, and Antichita Viva,
as well as memorable
reviews in newspapers,
especially the most important
Italian cultural newspaper,
the Sunday Supplement to Il Sole 24 Ore.
Between 1977 and 1987,
he directed the journal
Antologia de Belle Arti
together with Frederico
Zeri and Giuliano Briganti,
and again alone between 1988 and 2012.
His work is centered on
the keystones of Italian
decorative arts, on geniuses
such as Filippo Tagliolini,
Pietro Piffetti, Giuseppe
Maggiolini, and Luigi Valadier.
Like his subjects and their output,
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios
is a man whose work
is precise, elegant, poetic,
and quintessentially beautiful.
Like no other art historian
of his generation,
he has managed to project
his love for his field
of expertise and the
elegance of a past world
he so wonderfully and magically evokes.
Most recently, he has published
two extraordinary books,
Nostalgia e Invenzione:
Arredi e arti decorative a
Roma e Napoli nel Settecento
which includes several works
he had published before,
and last year, Il Serraglio di Pietra,
a catalog of the whimsical marvel animals
of the Sala degli Animali in the Vatican.
His catalog of the drawings
by Giuseppe Maggiolini
in the Collection of the
Castelos Sforzesco in Milan,
co-authored with Giuseppe Baretti,
will appear at the end of this year.
But his literary works are
not limited to art history.
His sharp and careful attention
does not focus on objects alone.
He has also written
memorable volumes of memoirs,
Le Tre Età, the three ages, in 1992,
Un Anno di Meno, Diario del Duemilasei,
A Year Less, The Diary of 2006,
and most recently, Persona e Maschera,
People in Masks.
In 1997, he was made
Ufficiale della Legion d'Onore
by the President of the Republic in France
for his work on French decorative arts
and especially for his monumental catalog
of French furniture in
the Cuerno Palace in Rome.
I could continue listing
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios's
achievements for another
hour this evening,
but as he himself has
said to me many times,
Voltaire used to say,
"the secret of being boring
is to say everything."
It is with immense pleasure that I welcome
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios
to the Frick this evening,
especially since this will be
the first lecture he delivers
in the United States in 23 years.
I would like to remind
you that tonight's lecture
will be streaming live on our website,
and it will be available
online for later viewing.
I would also ask you to please
turn off your cellphones
out of respect for our speaker,
and for your fellow audience members.
Finally, following tonight's lecture,
I invite you all to
join us for a reception
in the Garden Court to
celebrate tonight's speaker.
Please join me in welcoming
an esteemed colleague and dear friend,
Professor Gonzalez-Palacios.
(applause)
- Ladies and Gentlemen,
it's a bit difficult to blush at my age,
but don't believe all
that he has said. (laughs)
The secret of doing something
is first to like it and then,
not to do things that have
been already done before.
They're all there, and all you
have to do is focus on them
and then people think you are clever
because nobody has noticed it before,
but they were all,
I haven't done anything,
just opened the eyes and look at things
which are under everybody's eyes.
Tonight, we are going to
in my case,
I first have to say a personal thing
which one shouldn't do
in these cases, but,
this is the first place I came as a boy
and I saw international European art.
I was 13 and my family had
decided to send me to Canada
to learn English and to play hockey.
I didn't play hockey very well
and my English, as you see,
is not a great success either (chuckles)
but I mean, it's
a long time since all this has happened,
another century, another country, another,
things very difficult,
however, when I came here,
I was moved to tears and
I have come many times
but I have never spoken here before
so it's a great honor and
it's also a pleasure to remember my father
who died many years ago,
as Minister of Culture
in Cuba and other times,
and where I have never been back,
so in a place, this recalls of this
remote past and I have to be very
thankful for what the
Frick Collection has done,
at least for me, because
this was the first place
where I saw things that moved me
and that still move me.
I mean, Giovanni Bellini,
"St. Francis," is
to me is one of the most
beautiful pieces of painting
in the world, including Italy,
and probably the most
beautiful Italian painting
in America, I believe.
Now, let's become a little bit more,
how should I say, futi, futile,
how do you say, futile,
futile or superficial,
and we are going to talk
seriously about things
which are not very serious.
The subject of this conversation
today is going to be about
surtout de table.
I don't know, it's centerpieces,
and they don't have a
real name in Italian.
They are called "desers" in
Italian, after the French,
but written in Italian, D-E-S-E-R,
deser, and they were started,
the, what I am going to talk
about, essentially in Rome,
but of course, table centers
have always been used
in antiquity and they still are used.
You can put flowers, you can put plants,
you can do whatever you want.
In that period, what we
are going to talk about
is about the beginning
of Neoclassicism in Rome,
and they tried to
put that into the center of a table
so that you had a sort of
foreign or circus in miniature.
Some of it was extremely expensive
and you needed a number
of different artisans
to make it.
What you'll see here is not a deser.
This is a piece of the curation
from the Chigi Palace in Rome,
where the President of
the Republic is today,
but that was a papal family
in the center of the city.
And one of the rooms, the
so-called Golden Cabinet,
is decorated by Luigi Valadier,
who is a hero of the imminent.
He was of French origin,
but always lived in Rome.
Not always, he was born there in 1726
but his father was French.
They're a dynasty of
goldsmiths and bronze casters.
The father came from the French country,
and was called Andrea Valadier,
and he had, however,
established himself in Rome
and became a rather well-known
goldsmith, but, their
son was a sort of genius.
He was not also a, not only a,
a silversmith and a goldsmith,
but he was also bronze founder,
and he was also very capable designer,
and he had about 180
people working for him.
He married youngish,
the daughter of della
Valle, Filippo della Valle,
who was a good sculptor,
so he was in the middle
of all the movement of
arts in Italy in the
period in which he lived.
He had a very successful career,
but he killed himself.
He didn't manage, so the legend says,
that to do the new bells for Saint Peter,
which was enormous, he
couldn't manage to finish it,
and it seems that he also was a sort of
expensive, and he was practically broken
and he threw himself in
the Tiber which is not
a frequent thing to do for a Catholic.
He was forgiven, and anyway,
he was not 60 when he did this,
and he was
internationally very well known.
He was working for the Russians,
for Madame de Pompadour, no Barryin Paris,
for the Spanish aristocracy,
for Ambassador of Portugal,
and we will see later,
for many, many important people.
Still, something was wrong
and it didn’t work out.
He had been in Paris
as a young man in 1764
when he was still, not so young he was
they say about 36 or 37
and stayed there for a whole year
and strangely enough, he was always called
Andre Monsieur Luigi,
and although he was not
really French anymore,
but he had been birthed there,
but that’s the way it was.
What you see here are the
things that he did there
all over the room and you see
you can see that the flowers here,
I mean, they are on the round and
if you go on the ladder
and you can touch them
and they practically move.
It’s prodigious capacity of workmanship.
He was also active for the various popes
under which he lived
especially of Pius VI, Braschi,
who was a very important
man for the history of art.
A very vain man, but
he did manage to create
the Museo Pio-Clementino,
which is practically the
core of the Vatican Museum.
He did that in 25 years,
which is almost a miracle.
But he managed to buy and to direct
and to do it himself,
which he had started before
with the previous pope,
Clement XIII.
This object is one of
the last thing he did.
I just found documents about a year ago.
It was given by Cardinal Riminaldi
to the pope in 1785,
just a few months before he died.
It’s made for, to,
it’s an inkstand, a very
complicated inkstand
made of porphyry, of silver,
of gilt-bronze, and of basalt
and at the top, I think
you may see it here,
there are some lilies which were,
which is part of his emblems.
This is the Wallace Collection.
For years I thought it was by Valadier,
but I couldn’t place it.
A year ago, I found the documents for it.
This is, it still has the original etui
in which it was made.
To give an idea of what
a surtout or a deser is,
these are drawings that come
from the Studio Valadier
which are, there are about 2,000 of them.
They are divided in
between the Pina Katefer
at cal-li France, where this one is,
why they in there, I don’t know.
And then, the other part,
which is about 1,000 more drawings,
appeared solidly about
20 years ago and longer
and now they are all over the
place, so it’s difficult to know,
but this one is in France
and it gives you an idea
of what he intended to do.
These, in a way,
well, it’s difficult sometimes to say
who made these drawings
because there are many people
who were working for him.
Some of the drawings are by himself.
This is not the case.
This is a, what you call,
a faded presentation,
I mean, it’s a drawing for the
client to look what it’s going to
to look like, but there are some models
that give you an idea, I mean,
odalisque, an-te-pien-te, and
and a centerpiece with flowers.
I’m sorry but I cannot see very
well what I am showing you.
This will give you still a better idea.
This is a later thing by Luigi Righetti,
who was one of the pupils of Valadier.
And it’s at the Basilica
de Roma and dated,
there’s no problem here, 1817, so this is
a bit late for what
you’re going to see today,
but it’s a very good idea
of what it looks like,
and you see this is, what
you see is the plateau
then which, the thing on which the
the object stands, then
you can change them
and move them around so that
it can be used in different ways.
This is one which I
identified some years ago
and my identification was based on
the style of the thing,
but as you see it’s,
this is a support, and
she’s in white marble
and the inlaid with precious stones
and then it has two etceteras on the time
and two tempiete will
come and look at that.
But then I, sometimes,
if one is persistent,
one finds things and what you see
is off a piece of used Kleenex,
is the original drawing for the,
for the support of the thing and the,
you cannot read it, perhaps you could,
I don’t know if you can or not, can you?
Well, it’s called,
it’s the names of the stones
and they correspond exactly
to where they are you see.
You see the curve of the thing
is the same and if you look,
all the stones are those
which are nominated
and this is in that big,
big package of drawings
which appeared in London out of the blue,
who knows who bought them,
and they all come from the
book, workshop of Valadier,
which was continued by his
by his son, but he also
had a brother and nephew
so he said (speaking in foreign language)
and all that went into these 2,000 things
which have disappeared at a certain point
and today are probably worth nothing.
And then, suddenly, they
have interest everybody else.
These are the little objects
that fall part of the thing.
This is a coach.
(speaking in foreign language)
A chariot for, you see the
bronze quality’s fantastic and
and the bronze is, and the
the marble’s are extremely fine and
and very, very well polished.
Of course, he was not a
marble cutter himself.
You see, he directed everything.
He was essentially, I am
talking about Valadier again,
how shall I say, an
organizer, a draftsman,
an extraordinary founder and chiseler.
Of course this is,
well, also made in other materials,
I am not going to dwell on this very long
because they we’ll go on forever.
This is one made in porcelain.
It is still in the Palacio Palavecini
but it comes from the Chigi Palace.
It has been exceeded that here and there
and the figures are in bisque porcelain
which were also made in Rome
by the manufacturer Bonaparte.
There again, this is not a very large one.
It’s about two meters.
But some of these things
can be very, very large.
What you see here are the remains
of one of the largest surtouts of
the sales that were made by Valadier.
They were finished in 1778, two of them.
They both belong to the Baron de Breteuil
who was the Ambassador of
the Order of Malta in Rome,
a very rich man and a
very expensive match.
And so he sold this first
one to Catherine the Great
and there are the letters,
when the thing arrives,
she’s getting very, very
excited about it and she says,
“This is such a wonderful thing.
“I am playing with it all the time.”
And surtout, surtout, surtout.
She was writing in French to Baron Green,
who was her agent in Paris and she
wanted what she wanted
and she usually got it.
Anyway, she, this thing was
then given to one of her lovers.
She liked pictures,
marbles, and handsome men.
She got a lot of everything.
And when it came back,
the plateau is finished.
One doesn’t know where
it is, it’s disappeared.
This was after the death
of Catherine the Great
and of her lover, one of them.
But when the thing was bought in,
we know we have idea of description,
how it was but it doesn’t exist.
At the same time, the Baron de Breteuil
also had a notice of two
which he, in that case, did not sell.
He, after finishes
Embassy of Malta in Rome
of Malta in Rome, he went
back to Paris where he lived
and where he died in 1786.
This was a famous object and of which
most of which, it still remains
and which was sold to his
debt to the King of Spain.
I mean, he was Charles IV.
Now, this is an ideal
reconstruction made with a computer
but the objects are all there.
There were not very clearly but one found,
with a bit of patience,
all the documentations
and I will go through it.
This is the essential
part of what it was but
as you have, perhaps, understood,
these objects could be mixed
and composed in different ways.
You can make it for larger
or for smaller parties.
I mean, not for Cat
Papason, but, I mean, for a
for a large audience.
So, one of the things,
they couldn’t be altogether
so you could alter them.
Then, since that wasn’t still enough,
the King of Spain made additions
so at the end, today,
it’s nine meters long
and is divided between the
Royal Palace in Madrid,
two pieces are in the Prado and the rest,
who knows why, is in the
Archaeological Museum.
This is 1778, 86 bought by Charles IV
and now, in various places in Spain.
This is the drawing
for the original thing,
which I found in Rome.
This is the, the main part,
which has now much more
additions made in Spain.
I won’t bore you with them
because the quality is not the same.
But I mean, as you see, the sign,
it corresponds more or less to what it was
and the quality is
absolutely extraordinary.
These are the details and
why did I say that
that the title of this lecture is because
all the motifs are from the antiquity,
from the antique.
These lions here are the
ones which used to be then
near the Station of Germany,
front of where the
Santa Teresa of Bernini and
Santa Maria of Victoria.
Now they are copies there, but I mean,
they’re exactly the same.
So he had copied and
more or less taken all the objects that
and creating a sort of extremely precious
and very expensive things.
These are various temples.
This one is call of Minerva,
of Athenas.
And the quality of materials
used is unbelievable expensive.
is unbelievable expensive.
The top, which one cannot
perhaps see very well here,
is in ivory, it’s carved ivory.
These are various heartstones.
Only some of it is marble,
like this is giallo antico
and this is the black and
white va-ki-ten from France
but all the other things are heartstones,
therefore, you cannot, in many cases,
you have to cut it and veneer it,
so it’s an extremely
complicated, technical
difficult to make this.
You see, there are veneer and then you use
pieces of bronze to put them together.
So the amount of time and of money
that was needed was immense.
There, this is also a reproduction of the
Arc of Adria, of Tryan in Oncala
and he majors corresponds.
There again, you will
see now, some details
of the inscriptions, which
are done with great care.
Of course, this has suffered a lot.
It has been restored, not completely,
and thank God, because it’s
a very difficult thing to do.
Now it’s in the care,
they’re still divided,
that, between the,
one finds things, one puts them together,
it’s only on paper because,
of course, everything now
is between three different places,
which is of almost unbelievable
that it’s in the same city.
This is even more precious.
It’s anoth, it’s a reductio
of the arc of Timuel Zevair,
which is in the forough,
but the material used here is amber,
which is a very rare thing
and it corresponds to the
reality because in the
inventories after his death,
he still have pieces
of amber and of ivory.
So, he was working into that
or having people work with him
because we don’t know.
I mean, he had 180 people.
The idea is his but who did execution
we don’t exactly know.
This one is made, another
of little temples,
is made of lapis lazuli, amethyst,
and semi-precious small granites,
which you can see here.
This is inspired by the Temple of Tivoli,
which you probably know,
which is a round temple.
Now, I have taken out any photograph.
It has a cupola, which was added in Spain
and looks absolutely terrible
so I have cut it for your benefit.
But here you can see how
the whole thing worked.
Of course, you can change this
and you can put them into smaller pieces
or add or have it all extended
as much as you wanted.
Of course, it’s a kingly passion.
Some of these tamils
were supposed to be old.
Now this is, has been disputed.
But, in some cases, they are so restored
that it’s difficult to say if they are
18th century, or half so, or fakes.
Not fakes, but I mean, imitations,
done with great, great patience.
It also has this rust colored columns
of which the main example
is an ancient one,
which is in the Capitol and Museum.
So you see, all the
models for these things
have been taken from the antique
and made with the most
expensive materials ever.
A few years later,
the reigning pope, Pius VI,
built a ballast for his nephew.
Which is still in front,
near the Pieza de Bono
the Palazzo Braschi.
And, he order, of course
the Vatican pay for it.
a surtout de table, this there for his
nephew.
And this is
nine meters long.
It's all covered with amethyst
and all precious stone.
This is a very bad photo,
but it gives you an idea
of what it's, it is enormous.
And the, amount of
money and other this cosi.
Here, you can see the details.
And, you see how it's
all carved, all veneer
with different things.
Sorry, but I can't see very
well what I am showing you,
but I hope you can see
it better than I do.
You will see now the masks
that are used by him,
which are carved marble.
Then, to do that,
you have to cut it
almost in a precious way.
Using then bronzes to
put around like swags.
All these are again, precious marbles.
And, this is 1784.
When the whole thing was finished,
it was taken to the qui
denar for the Pope to see.
So, that means, I mean it has
about 100 objects on top of it,
plus six metals or seven metals.
It's even, no, it's about nine meters,
when it's complete.
So, the weight
and the amount of time
to have a look at this,
it was already a very difficult story.
Now, in 1798,
when the French invaded Rome,
the whole thing was dismantled
and taken to France.
Some of it was broken.
Some of it was stolen,
it seems by the Mareshal Berthier.
And, it seemed that they did
pay money to the Duke of Braschi,
who said that he had, and he had.
And, as a matter of fact,
the thing remade in Paris,
but it was forgotten.
The whole thing was divided.
There was an exhibition with it
with the Louvre some years ago,
trying to put the whole thing together.
It's a different one from
the ones you see here.
Details, you get a marble.
You see the quality of the bronzes.
And, this is only the support.
Then, slowly the description of this is
120 pages of description,
one has been able to find a few things,
that it contained old
things and ancient things,
and things more or less
made and described,
like these two one,
which are two little cups,
which were with a private
collection in Switzerland,
and they didn't know what it was,
but it's perfectly described.
These milling bulls that you see here,
are taken from a marble
that belonged to Piranesi,
and it's also published
in the ba-si-chi-pia
and the candelabri.
So, there is always a sort of
liaison with the antiquities.
And, the original marble,
which I'm not having brought today,
is in the Vatican museum.
But, you can look it up in my book
in Saturnalia.
It's not posi-
And there are things which are modern,
like these two vases,
which are also described in the Louvre,
but not together with the set.
So it's a ...
You see it's a sort of
very complicated thing,
and that it's like a police story,
because everything is divided,
and split into different
departments which hate each other,
and don't want these
things to go together.
And, so they have remained hidden there.
The idea of the vases,
that you will see in another case
with the wrong
comes from a very ancient craft city
which is in Santa Chi-len-test-ebre
a famous city that marvel
all the tourist with this,
this rolling things at the top.
And these have nothing to do with that.
They are after molded by Duque
Noir of the 18th century.
It was the most beloved baroque sculpture
of the neoclassicism, Neoclassical period.
But, these are perfectly described.
How they were put in the
thing is difficult to say.
There were six Hermes
in various materials.
Many cases, I think more or less remade.
Recently, about some
years ago, I found one
in the Metropolitan Museum.
And, it comes from the same series.
You see the character is the same rework,
or perhaps completely fake.
And, it has the same support.
So, all these were all around.
I mean, a hundred objects.
It was not an easy thing.
Then there were things which
were completely modern,
like the Four Continents.
This one is carved in rosa antico.
One doesn't know who carved this now.
Valdier himself was not capable of doing.
My impression is that it could be
one of the small craftsman
that were in Rome,
which is something extraordinary,
that never again was such
a quality exists in after.
Even after, after Napoleon,
it's never the same.
It doesn't, they don't have
this great capacity of manner activity.
That,
and then, there are these subjects
that are half good,
half ancient, half not.
The basis of course, the support,
is all be Valadier, you see.
While this thing here, part of it Genoan.
Some of this is alright.
And the first, the rest is completed.
So, it's an amusing combo.
These are bronzes.
Now, some people think they are ancient.
Some don't.
But, in one of the
documents, Valadier says,
"I have given it its original patina."
How can you give an original patina.
That's a bit difficult to explain.
But, that's it he was doing.
He was just faking it.
I mean, and this is probably
has been done always.
The thing is that we don't know.
You remember about the things
in the world's collection
which have been all,
it's difficult just to know.
All this burn is just patinations,
were very difficult to say.
This little ones,
which there are four of them, sorry.
This one here are,
how do you?
I don't know how to call
this in English, Illari,
the gods that protect the family.
De la folkalari.
There are two of these.
It seems they are
ancient, but repatinated.
And, the other one, nobody has yet
given a proper indication about it.
Some, two or three years ago,
appeared in a sale of
a man called Sebuldaki,
in Geneva,
these strange things
which are made of granite.
And, they are to contain ice cream,
which is a difficult thing
to think you can do that.
But it, they belong to same thing.
This is the top of the thing.
And, you can see here,
there are,
I am going to fix it, process.
(talking off mic)
Which is the coat of arms of the Pope.
The same thing,
these are two candlesticks
out of porphyry,
which is an absurd thing to make,
and the difficult is enormous,
to cut a piece of porphyry,
which is the hardest stone ever.
You have to hook it, to
put the things inside.
And, that certainly comes
from the same piece,
because here you can see very well his,
you can see it better.
You see this is a wind
that blows on these lilies.
And, that's the coat of arms of Pius VI.
So, can you see it there?
This is little boy
which is throwing wind out of his mouth.
So, this is such a difficult,
it's for love of the preciosity
and of the difficulty the work.
Because at the end of end,
what does it take to make this?
It's very, very difficult.
So, it's just an absurd.
It would have been much
simpler to make it in bronze.
"No, no, it has to be in more expensive
"and much complicated."
And, all that corresponds to what it did.
This is another one,
which is made for the embassy of
Rome, Spain in Rome.
The author of the idea
was a Catalan's culture,
which I don't particularly like very much,
called Campeni.
And, it's also about nine meters long.
Strangely enough, it
has ended up in Panama,
from where it doesn't come.
One doesn't know why it got there,
'cause Rome is one
thing, Panama's another.
But, the families were the same.
There is Pulbon.
So, that was the Ambassador of,
was the Ambassador of the Bourbon king.
And, the Duke of Panama was a Bourbon.
It was his son.
So, in a way there may
be a reason for that.
But, here you can get an idea
of one which was complete,
while the other one of the,
in the Louvre is all divided.
So, we don't really know how it was made.
Here it does contain a lot of objects too.
And, some of them are extremely,
you see, this is the same idea
of the ones you saw before,
but this is 20 years later.
But, since this is all
based on antique model,
the idea is the same,
but he has tried to be more classic.
Therefore, instead of
putting little putty-like
in the duque noir thing,
he has tried to make a straightforward
classical-like figures.
This one, however is
not signed by Campeni,
but it does happen to be signed
by a man called Bosque.
So, it's all a very co-.
I am showing you things
which had in a way,
not complete, yet.
Because, they are missing
liason between one thing and the other.
This thing's also from part of the thing.
These are rosa antico,
and taken of an ancient model.
So, the more time passes,
the more strict they become.
And, the more the observation
of the classical form
is more grammatical and pedagogical.
This is in my opinion, one
of the more perfect one.
And, it was lost for many years.
I found a drawing for it in Capote Bonte.
This is about nine meters long, also.
And, it doesn't exist, except only this.
You'll see it now.
You'll see this is the
idea of the support.
This is gone.
All these objects I haven't
found at all, only this,
which is not in lapis, as you see up here.
This is a drawing of presentation.
So, one doesn't know if
it was really made or not.
If you look at this, this
is the border, the support.
And, see what they have done at the end.
This is the only thing that exists.
Whether it was finished, one doesn't know.
Was it transformed?
It doesn't seem to be, because
the whole thing is coherent.
The marble are of exquisite quality.
They are also partly painted.
This is the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.
And, it's a reduction of it.
But, the problem is all this was done
around the very end of the 18th century.
So, one doesn't know this
is Valadier piece, probably.
Not necessarily, one doesn't really know.
I am at a loss then.
But, it is an extraordinary object,
certainly Roman.
And, what happened to the rest?
Was it ever made?
Or, was it a time when
the French invaded Naples,
and the King and Queen
had to flee for Palermo.
But, another one does exist.
You can see it now.
No, no, no, no, I'm
getting see this wrong.
No, I would show this later on to you.
Another man who was also working in Rome
at the same time,
is called Raffaelli.
And, he made the largest
deser that exists,
which is 12 meters long.
That was made, he was a Roman,
but he went to Milan,
where he opened a
manufacture-y to do that.
And, it was the beginning
of the 19th century,
about 1800.
That's the time when Napoleon has already
put his hands on Italy,
and in 1805, he would be
crowned King of Italy.
So, 1804.
So, probably this is
all consistent with it.
This man, however have done other things,
like this table,
which you see is the same technique.
In a way, this looks like
the plateau of a desert.
And the name is Giacomo Raffaelli.
Who, and this was just appeared
two year, a year ago, this year.
And, it's a Londonderry table,
and it was in a sale in,
in London a few months ago.
I don't know about that.
Wonderful object.
And, this is part of his huge deser,
of which I don't have a complete photo.
It's very difficult to photograph.
Because, can you imagine 12 meters?
It's,
how many meters are here?
Mostly from here to there.
It's endless.
It was used
only for official banquets.
Strangely enough, it remained there.
All these was started about 1798,
and he went to live in Milan.
And, he completed this endless thing,
which is in the Royal Palace in Milan,
a place where we can hardly see it.
It's a sort of, you can, I
cannot photograph it completely.
There are only very old photographs.
Some of the details you can see here.
Of course, there were copies of it made,
or things that come from it.
This appear also in another sale.
And, it comes from the same place.
How, why?
Difficult to say.
The idea of ancient motifs
is repeated many times.
This is today the Royal
Palace of Stockholm.
And, it was bought by surrogate.
The great sculpture was in Rome
in 1788, more or less.
And, this was made by Valadier,
and we know this because of his letters.
He says that he is going
to Valadier to order this.
And, then when the whole
thing is completed,
he said, "And what shall we put in top?"
So, he bought an ancient mortar porphyry,
and put in on top of it.
And, this idea was also repeated
later on by Valadier,
Julius Valadier's son.
Guiseppe, who was also an architect
and made this sort of very stiff drawings.
Here again, changing it
and making it into a basin.
You can do whatever you
want with an ancient form.
This is done by Righetti, who
was one of Valadier's pupils,
for the King of Naples.
Instead, what he puts on
top of it is a water vase
But, I think it's now in the
back in where it should be.
In England, no?
I don't remember, yes.
It's a thing that belong to Piranesi,
and that was copied many times.
And, so they have nothing to do.
This is the borghese dancers,
which are now in the Louvre,
the original ones.
This is back in England.
It's a water vase,
where it was at a certain point sold,
but then bought back by the city.
This is also a famous motif,
which are these three statues.
There are four, as a matter of fact,
the original one, the old ones.
They were from the Villa Albani,
and were taken by the French,
and now they are in the Louvre,
but this was copied in the old days
and transformed into a fountain,
also for the King of Naples,
which was Murat, about 1809,
if I don't forget.
Before that, he also, Valadier also,
and Rigetti also worked for both parts.
And, he did four pieces like this,
which can be put which way you want it.
I mean, they are huge.
They are about 70 centimeters each.
So, you can put them either in a row,
or you can transform,
and after, they are completely mounted.
And they are 1803.
Bronzes and the models are
the muses of the Vatican.
And, this is a thing which also exceeds.
All the things were not invented.
They are also from antique models.
This is one of the
clocks that Valadier did.
And, this comes from the Villa Beoghesi.
Found this later on.
Those of you that know the Vatican Museum,
you would certainly
remember these two statues,
which are at the entrance
of Museo Pio-Clementino.
They're in granite,
and they come from the Palazzo di,
Bishop's Palace in Tivoli.
And, Pius VI took them to the Vatican,
and you can see them there.
And, there is a little
mosaic also on here,
all porphyry, great sumptuosity.
You remember the fonts that were
in the Albani Palace.
Then, in the Louvre,
the same model was used,
in this case to to hold a clock.
He, has like a, the works from Lumbago,
or something of the sort,
very strange position.
But, they are sort of
holding something else,
and they have invented
various things as a solution.
This one is Giuseppe Valadier
and there are drawings for it
in other materials
so you can, more or less,
do whatever you want.
This drawing is in fin-sa.
They also made, in the
same, at the same time,
chimney places (speaking off microphone).
It seemed that in Rome,
it was always very cold
and they produced an enormous
amount of chimney places.
piece, pieces, which were never late,
so people were always shivering
but the things were made in
marble and in precious metals
and things like that.
This one is made by a man called
Mansel, oh my god, I forget the name.
It’s Penrice Castle,
and the name is Talbot.
He was in Rome and all the accounts
were published year ago by John Conforth
and so one knows exactly that
this was bought from Valadier
and made by him
and probably by a man called Albacini.
At the same time, this Mr.
Talbot Mansel, who then become,
was knighted, had very bad
manners, was very rude,
but was immensely rich and it seems
he was also having an affair
with the Duchess of Bofour.
So, if you go and visit
Badminton, as you could,
you will find this, which is
probably the most beautiful
chimney place made in Rome
in the late 18th century.
The models of the things
are from two statues,
which are in the, in the Vatican,
in the Capitol Museum, may be transformed.
These are the borghese was,
this slab here, which is in the
in the Louvre,
and the rest is porphyry
and what is very interesting,
I don’t know if you
can see this from here,
these are like flowers.
It’s a complete flower and you see
the bulb of the flower, too.
It’s a whole thing and a
materialistic idea from
from the bottle to the end.
Can you see this?
This part, here.
He said this, there are letters
of the man who make the drawing for it,
which is right there at the top.
He was a teacher on
there, or a bear leader,
called James Byer,
who was very much connected
with his English patrons,
who which were immensely rich.
And one know how much
they paid, 168 pounds,
which was a lot of money at that time.
And we know when the thing was send
and in how many paths it
was sent to Badminton,
where it still is, so
one can see it there.
And this is 1775.
These four vases, there are only two here,
but there are four, were given
by the, his fellow cardinals,
to one of the daughters of File Cares,
who was elected also in the last years
of Valadier’s life, in 1785.
One didn’t know what it was but then
one found the drawings,
which are more or less for it
and you will see, now, how this is used
because this is amazing.
It’s a sort of Matthew Baltin idea.
This thing can be changed
and you see what happens.
You see you can put and add
these candlesticks on top this
and these, as you see,
are exactly the same as the drawings here
which are in the Museo de Rome
and the Palacio Velasco.
So there is no question about that.
Then, of course, reading
one of the diaries of Rome
in the 17, 18th century,
the diary of car-cra-cas
which said what happened and everything.
This, they’re mentioned
when they were given
and these are the same thing repeated
in different models, as you see.
You see, these have a different,
it’s alabaster but then
with a granite background
when these are not.
Later on, this becomes
more and more prodigolical.
These are made by Giovacchino Belli who is
we are talking now about 1815,
so from the early things that
we saw, 30 years have passed
and they are in the Royal Collection.
They are made of marble and gilt-bronze.
He was also a silversmith
and he made these perfect copies of it,
three major arcs in Rome.
They are too big, they
are about one meter high,
so they were not made for the sir,
they are in the Royal Library at Windsor
and of extraordinary quality.
It’s the same idea, I mean,
one lives on antique models forever and
and changing them in different ways.
The same thing was done
with precious marbles.
This is a very funny story
of a man called Franconi,
who was a carver of
marbles, of pedal sticks,
and he did this.
It’s rather, about one
meter high without the base
for which he invents a story.
He said that in the Vatican
he was given one of these swans
to use it and to make
something and then he goes
to the Bid Albany where he
founded three other ones,
which is, of course, nonsense.
He just bought them and
sold them to the Pope
for an enormous amount of money.
But what you are seeing
is practically a fake.
He only have these four little swans
and you can see it here.
Where all the little
pieces have been added
but with an extraordinary capacity.
The swans are ancient.
But, in a, let’s see if we can see it.
Can you see it properly
here, where all the
the pieces of, have been put together?
And to do this is not an easy job.
(speaks off microphone) Rosa
antico is not such a hard
marble as the porphyry,
but if you go too quickly,
it will break.
So, completely in this
and making it into a
model which is unique.
This has been copied, I
think, about 200 times,
and if you go Per-ta-vel-or-ed
you’ll find little pieces like this.
This is a meter high but it has been,
it had a great, great popularity
and it’s always said adrianic time.
Of course, it was made in 1783.
And then he did all, this also,
the same person who’s called Franconi.
He also invented new model
with some ravens,
which is a rather sinister ideal,
having the thing in
black marble and ravens.
But it was very, very famous,
but not so copied as the other one.
So you see this language of the ancients
when on forever, being adapted to use it
as a, they want to eat in front of it
or to put your ashes, if you wanted,
I mean, I find it rather
sinister sometimes,
but I mean, what one has
to admire historic capacity
and the darkness which is extraordinary.
I hope I haven’t bore you
too much with all this
minotsier, thank you very much.
(applause)
