Lot 18. A Doccia White Porcelain Head of The Roman Emperor Hadrian, Circa 1754. Height 34 cm. Lot Sold 240,000 EUR (Estimate 100,000 - 150,000 EUR) © Sotheby's 2024

After the antique, mounted on a later wooden support

Provenance: With Alessandro Orsi, Milan, bearing label (by 1960)
Donati Collection, Milan (by 1982)

Literature: G. Morazzoni and S. Lévy, Le porcellane italiane, Vol. II. Milan, 1960, taf. 237b.
L.Ginori Lisci, La porcellana di Doccia, Milan, 1963, p. 63, fig. 42.
K. Lankheit, ‘Rokoko und Antike, Teste di Cesari in Porzellan’, Forschungen und Funde: Festschrift Bernhard Neutsch, Innsbruck 1980, taf. 53.2.
K. Lankheit, Die Modellsammlung der Porzellanmanufaktur Doccia, Munich, 1982, abb. 28.
J. Winter (ed.), Le statue del marchese Ginori. Sculture in porcellana bianca di Doccia, Florence, 2003, p. 44.
J. Kräftner (ed.), Baroque Luxury Porcelain. The Manufactories of Du Paquier in Vienna and of Carlo Ginori in Florence, Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, exh. cat., Munich, 2005, p. 403.
A. Biancalana, Porcellane e maioliche a Doccia, la fabbrica dei marchesi ginori i primi cento anni, Milan, 2009, p. 100.
A. Biancalana, La scultura della Fabbrica dei marchesi Ginori a Doccia. Le fonti culturali e artistiche e le figure più rappresentative nel XVIII secolo: Gaspero Bruschi e suo nipote Giuseppe, Palazzo Madama, 2011, p. 20.
R. Balleri, Modelli della manifattura di porcellane Ginori di Doccia: Settecento e gusto antiquario, Rome, 2014, cat. no. 203.
R. Balleri in Monika Poettinger, et. al., Oro bianco, tre secoli di porcellane Ginori, exh. cat., Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan, 2023, p. 87, cat. no. 16a.
S. Settis, D. Gasparotto, Catalogue d'exposition, Serial / Portable Classic: Multiplying Art in Greece and Rome, Fondazione Prada, 2015, p. 51.

Exhibited: Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Oro bianco, tre secoli di porcellane Ginori, 25 October 2023-19 February 2024.

Lot 19. A Doccia White Porcelain Head of The Roman Emperor Trajan, Circa 1756. Height 36 cm. Lot Sold 72,000 EUR (Estimate 60,000 - 80,000 EUR) © Sotheby's 2024

Provenance: With Alessandro Orsi, Milan (by 1960).

Literature: G. Morazzoni and S. Lévy, Le porcellane italiane, Vol. II, Milan, 1960, taf. 237b.
K. Lankheit, ‘Rokoko und Antike, Teste di Cesari in Porzellan’, Forschungen und Funde: Festschrift Bernhard Neutsch, Innsbruck, 1980, taf. 53.1.
K. Lankheit, Die Modellsammlung der Porzellanmanufaktur Doccia, Munich, 1982, p. 115, 14:17, abb. 27.
J. Winter (ed.), Le statue del marchese Ginori. Sculture in porcellana bianca di Doccia, Florence, 2003, p. 44.
J. Kräftner (ed.), Baroque Luxury Porcelain. The Manufactories of Du Paquier in Vienna and of Carlo Ginori in Florence, Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Exhibition Catalogue, Munich, 2005, p. 403.
A. Biancalana, Porcellane e maioliche a Doccia, la fabbrica dei marchesi ginori i primi cento anni, Milan, 2009, p. 100.
R. Balleri, Modelli della Manifattura Ginori di Doccia Settecento e gusto antiquario, Rome, 2014, cat. no. 199

RELATED LITERATURE: R. Balleri, Oro bianco, tre secoli di porcellane Ginori, exh. cat., Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan, 2023, pp. 86-89, 138-139.

A bridge between Classic and 20th Century Art

Prof. Salvatore Settis and Davide Gasparotto, in their essay published in the catalogue of the Fondazione Prada exhibition “Serial/Portable Classic” in Milan (2015), clarified the relationship and the analogy between the technical progress of production of ancient original bronzes and the large porcelain sculptures of Doccia. This is crucial for the appreciation of Classical art and key to the understanding of the seriality of 20^th century and contemporary art.

Doccia Busts

These heads of the Roman Emperors, Trajan and his successor Hadrian, are amongst the most important masterpieces of sculpture, after the antique, which were executed in white porcelain during the early years of the Doccia factory.
They are rare and exceptional products of the visionary enterprise of Marchese Carlo Ginori (1701-1757), who established the manufacture of porcelain close to his villa at Doccia, near Florence in 1737. Porcelain was a new fashionable and precious medium known as “the White Gold” of the 18th century in Europe.
Marchese Carlo Ginori was remarkable in that he was able to blend his vision and refined tastes with the practical dynamism of a business with a deep understanding of both the art market trends and the demands of the important international elite collectors. As a modern art manager, he was in fact able to develop a cultural program within his museum concept.

Museal programme

The cultural programme of Marchese Carlo Ginori focused on the creation of his “Galleria dei Modelli”, a real museum exhibiting the most important of ancient masterpieces. At the base of this cultural project was the perception of Classical Art as a vehicle for conveying ethical values and formulas of harmony and beauty.

The conception and execution of the series of the twelve busts from the complete iconographic circle of the Caesaris, is at the heart of the project for the Galleria dei Modelli. They were copied from the ancient originals in the Capitoline Museum as documented by the inventory of the manufactory. The plaster cast copies of this series, executed with the assistance of the sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716-1799), arrived at Doccia in 1754.

Bust of Marchese Carlo Ginori © Museo Ginori, Sesto Fiorentino

Experimentation

Marchese Carlo Ginori’s experimental taste was definitely ahead of his time, as during the mid-18^th century, he produced reproductions after the Antique, which were characterized by their archaeological approach and in which differed to the more romantic and decorative production of the other European porcelain factories in the 18^th century. Gasparo Bruschi (1710-1780), sculptor and Master modeller, executed the first large format of a porcelain sculpture based on ancient statues. The Doccia porcelain works, with their pure white colouring, are therefore sculptures which anticipated the fashion and artistic trends of the Neoclassical style.

The market

The passion for collecting ancient sculptures and reproductions after the antique started in the 15th century with the increase in humanistic studies. It was shared and developed by the international jet-set of the young and wealthy Grand Tourists who travelled through Italy, who at the end of their journey wished to retain memories of the monuments they had seen and the emotions they had experienced. This desire inspired the invention of “souvenir”, works of art initially made in bronze but also in porcelain. Marchese Carlo Ginori foresaw the opportunity offered by this growing market and the demand for copies of the most celebrated antiquities, through the creation of reproductions in porcelain. He was conscious of the superiority of the pure-white porcelain as the ideal medium to imitate and reproduce the softness and the details of ancient marbles.

Apart from its fragility, porcelain was also less expensive to produce and to ship. The huge cost of large bronze copies often proved difficult to transport and were a far more expensive and complicated affair which impacted the resources of the most powerful, extravagant and wealthy sovereigns.

Innovation and technology

These heads are the best example of the experimental technological innovation and the challenges that were overcome by Marchese Carlo Ginori in the production of large-format at 1:1 scale porcelain sculpture, produced by assembling several large parts.

This process was very delicate and required great technical mastery to avoid the problem of firing deformation of the single elements and ensuring a consistent and perfect assembly of each segment. The correspondence between the Master Modeller of the Doccia Manufactory and the Marchese Carlo Ginori, dated 7 September 1754, clearly states the difficulty that the mould maker had to overcome in modelling a porcelain bust after the antique.

The serial nature of classical art

The serial nature of Classical art is rooted in the repetitive production of bronze sculptures, often assembled from separate parts and made by using moulds, making them even more "serial" than marble copies. The technique used to create the Doccia porcelain reflects an ancient compulsion for repetition, driven by the cultural and aesthetic importance of copying masterpieces, which symbolized fame, taste, and social prestige. Modern critiques of art draw parallels between Classical seriality and 20th-century art forms, where photography, cinema, and artists like Duchamp, Warhol, and Koons challenged the idea of originality. Jeff Koons, for example, further explored seriality by reinterpreting classical works like the Farnese Hercules.

These two porcelain sculptures, the only extant models known depicting Emperor Hadrian and Trajan, are from a rare and important group of Emperor bust portraits after Roman marble originals made at the Doccia factory under the direction of its owner, Marchese Carlo Andrea Ginori.

These sculptures belong to a group of near life-size Roman Imperial portraits made in Doccia porcelain after Roman antique marbles. It exemplifies an early move among the European porcelain factories towards the taste of Neoclassicism. The vision was ambitious and technically difficult, and because of this perhaps as few as twelve Doccia porcelain emperor busts are recorded in the literature. Lot 18 and 19 in this sale appear to be the only known examples depicting Hadrian (73-138AD) and Trajan (53-117AD).

The Ginori Family and Doccia Porcelain

The Ginori family crest

In 1720, the first porcelain factory in Italy, and the third in Europe, to produce “true” (hard paste) porcelain was founded by Francesco Vezzi (1651-1740) in Venice. The enterprise was bold but short-lived and ended after just seven years. It had followed the earlier foundations laid by Augustus the Strong (1670-1733) at Meissen just outside Dresden in 1710, and by Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier (1679-1751) in Vienna in 1718.

Ten years after the Venice closure, in 1737, the Marchese Carlo Andrea Ginori (1702-57) established porcelain works in Sesto Fiorentino on the outskirts of Florence, which became the fourth site to successfully produce true porcelain in Europe. The optimistic Marchese, eager to follow the achievements of his rivals in Saxony and Vienna spared no expense in ensuring the venture was a commercial success and convinced skilled workers such as the porcelain painter Carl Wendelin Anreiter von Ziernfeld (1702-47) to leave Du Paquier’s Viennese factory and join him in Florence. The year the factory was founded he hired Florentine sculptor Gaspero Bruschi (1710-80), a student of Girolamo Ticciati (1671-1744), who became the leading modeller of sculptural works at the factory.

A Taste for the Antique and The ‘Teste de' Dodici Cesare'

In 1753, Carlo Ginori appointed Guido Bottari, a Florentine living in Rome, as his agent with the principal task of searching for the most magnificent statues from antiquity that could be copied in porcelain at Doccia. Among his contacts, Bottari had an important family connection in his brother, who was the Vatican librarian and a counsellor to Pope Clement XII Corsini (1652-1730). Around the time of Bottari’s appointment, the factory also dispatched the modeller, Francesco Lici, also known as Squarcione, to Rome to produce moulds and plaster models of any antiquities that Bottari could secure.

During the spring and summer of 1754, plaster models and copies by Lici began arriving in Doccia. On 27th July 1754, the head modeller Bruschi wrote to Ginori of some of the difficulties he encountered in using forms produced by Squarcione:

“Da quello che sentii nella lettera del Giardiniere, mi dice ch’io faccia delle statue grandi venute di roma, queste presentemente non si posson fare, perché la forma che si fa sul marmo non è mai servibile riguardo ai sotto squadri, e ai rapporti di braccia, e scuri, come sotto le braccia e in altri luoghi ove non si puol metter gesso, e codesto puoi segarlo, e formarlo in quadratura. Squarcione ha mandato di codesti getti fatti bravamente; ha mandato ancora delle forme, ma se io le fo di porcellana Le sciupo, e ne perdiam la forma, qui ne cié altro che aspettare torni Squarcione, e per adesso farò certi busti alla meglio ch’a mandato il medesimo di Roma.”

[“From what I heard in the Gardener's letter, he tells me that I make large statues that have come from Rome, these cannot be made at present, because the form that is made on marble is never serviceable with regard to the under-squares, and to the ratios of arms and darks, as under the arms and in other places where it is not possible to put plaster, and you can saw it, and make it square. Squarcione has sent some of these castings that have been done well; he has also sent some forms, but if I make them in porcelain I'll ruin them, and we'll lose the form, here there's nothing more to do than wait for Squarcione to come back, and for now I'll make some busts in the best way that the same one from Rome has sent.”].1

The rich series of imperial portrait marble busts represented one of the most precious features of the collection formed by Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692-1779), which were purchased in 1733 for the Capitoline Museums by Pope Clement XII Corsini as the founding nucleus of the new museum, inaugurated the following year. The Museum’s first president, the Florentine Marchese Alessandro Gregorio Capponi, dedicated a room to the portraits, the Sala degli Imperatori.

On 20th July 1754, Bottari wrote to Ginori of the twelve busts of the Capitoline Caesars from Rome:

“[...] in questa mattina sono state imbarcate due casse dirette a V. Ecc.za sopra il Navicello S. Ranieri [...]. In una di dette casse cioè nella più grande sono le Teste de Dodici Cesari, avute dal Sig.r Campiglia ed in quella minore sono i getti di due gruppi del Bernino, che scrissi di aver comprati.”,

“[...] this morning two crates were embarked bound for Your Excellency on the Navicello S. Ranieri [...]. In one of these crates, that is in the larger one, are the Heads of the Twelve Caesars, received from Sig.r Campiglia and in the smaller one are the castings of two groups by Bernino, which I wrote that I had bought”].2

It is probable the heads sent were plaster casts. Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, the engraver, was responsible for the engravings of the emperor busts included in Volume II of the Capitoline Museum’s catalogue published in 1741 by Guido’s brother, Giovanni Bottari (see below).

Engravings of Emperors Hadrian and Trajan, by Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, circa 1741 after the originals in the Capitoline Museum (Musei Capitolini, Del Museo Capitolino vol.2, Rome, 1741, pl.34, p.175 and pl.29, p.165)

The price list drawn up by Jacopo Rendelli in about 1760 includes ‘Teste di Cesari di grandezza naturale modellate dagli originali del Campidoglio colla loro Base di porcellana bianca', [Life-size heads of Caesars modelled from the Capitoline originals with their white porcelain bases], with a price of 133 Lira, 6 soldi, among the most expensive products of the factory.3 The twelve Caesars are later listed in the factory’s Inventorio dei Modelli as: ‘Le 12 teste dei Cesari’, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian… Gli originali sono in Campidoglio, [… the originals in the Capitoline].4

A surviving letter dated 7th September 1754 sent to Ginori by the ministers of the Doccia factory, Bruschi, and decorator Jacopo Fanciullacci, references preparatory work for realizing a bust of Hadrian, almost certainly the present lot:

“[...] Squarcione forma il Busto, e Testa dell’Adriano, avendolo io rifatto di Terra, cosa che non si potrà sfuggire a tutte quelle forme cavate dal marmo. Per fare gli altri busti alle teste che non li hanno, è necessario avere il Libro, stampe del Museo Capitolino, che mi fece tempo fa mandare a Firenze, però lo potrebbe far qua ritornare, per copiar q.sti busti [...] ”,

“[...] Squarcione forms the Bust, and Head of Hadrian, having remade it of Terra, which cannot escape all those forms carved from marble. To make the other busts of the heads that do not have them, it is necessary to have the Book, Prints of the Capitoline Museum, which he had me send some time ago to Florence, but he could have it returned here, to copy these busts [...]”.5

The letter was recently exhibited alongside the present sculpture in the exhibition Oro bianco, tre secoli di porcellane Ginori at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.

Hadrian is recorded in the Inventorio dei Modelli, circa 1791-1806, p. 49: “N. 22 Un Busto rappresentante Adriano. L’originale è in Roma, con sue forma” (Lankheit, 1982, p. 145); and twice in the Inventario delle Forme, circa 1791-1806, S.31 and S.40. The inventories do not specify which marble in Rome was used as the source though it possible it was taken from the antique at Villa Albani, Rome.6

An antique Roman marble copy of the Albani bust is in the Uffizi, Florence, first recorded in the late 17th century as being in the grand-ducal collection of sculptures in the corridors of the gallery ordered by Cosimo III de' Medici of Florence (1642-1723). In 1695, this bust was copied in bronze by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1756-1740), on the orders of Prince Johann Adam Andreas I of Liechtenstein (1662-1712), at the suggestion of the artist. It was part of a series of casts taken from Roman emperor busts in the Uffizi, including Vitellius, Marcus Agrippa and Augustus. The four bronze busts were dispatched to the Prince on 30th November 1695. Unlike other moulds by Soldani, those taken of the Uffizi antique busts did not come into possession of Carlo Ginori.7 The busts realized by Soldani feature marble pedestal supports with titled bronze appliques and it is conceivable these influenced the scroll-edged porcelain bases seen on the Doccia series of the twelve Ceasars.

The Doccia Emperor Busts

In addition to the series of twelve, Hadrian, and Trajan (see lot 19), the inventory also includes further individual heads of Roman emperors, including Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Antoninus Pius and Sulla, bringing the total number of busts of emperors known to eighteen.

When the present lot and the bust of Trajan were first published by Lankheit in 1980, he was aware of only four Doccia porcelain emperor busts surviving. Subsequently examples have rarely appeared on the art market and today we can include:

Julius Caesar, illustrated in Lankheit, 1980, taf. 54.3,

Head of Augustus, 18th century, Doccia Porcelain Manufactory, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis (90.123a,b),9

Head of Tiberius, ca. between 1754 and 1755, Gaspero Bruschi, Artist; Doccia Porcelain Factory, Manufacturer The Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit (1990.250),10

A rare Doccia bust of the Roman Emperor Caligula, 1750-1760, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, Property from the Estate of Mrs. Robert Lehman, 18 November, 2010, lot 1 (for $266,500),

A Rare Doccia Bust of the Roman Emperor Otho (32-69), sold at Sotheby's, London, 13 July, 1976, lot 84, 11

A Doccia (Carlo Ginori) white portrait bust of the Emperor Vitellius, circa 1754-60, after the antique, sold at Christie’s, London, A Surreal Legacy: Selected works of art from The Edward James Foundation, 15 December, 2016, lot 9 (for £161,000),12

and Titus, also in The Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit.13

A bust of Claudius, Doccia Manufacture, ca 1754-1760, incised with the inscription “Claudio”, sold at Sotheby’s, London, The Property of a Gentleman, 5th May 1970, lot 15, and was recently offered at Pandolfini, Florence, 3 November, 2020, lot 7. The bust was included alongside the present bust in the exhibition Oro bianco, tre secoli di porcellane Ginori at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, where it was reattributed as depicting Emperor Nerva. Balleri, op. cit., 2023, writes in her entry for the bust that the inscription was likely a mistake by a manufactory worker (p. 138, cat. no. 15).14 A further emperor bust on a porcelain scroll support is in the historic porcelain collection at Schloss Fasanerie, Fulda.15

Footnotes:
1 AGL, XII, 5, f. XXIII, lett. 64, transcribed in Biancalana, op. cit., 2009, pp. 54-55; Balleri, op. cit., 2014, p. 295.
2 AGL, XII, 4, f. XXI, lett. 45, cited in Kräftner (ed.) op. cit., 2009, p. 401, cat. n. 256; Oliva Rucellai, ‘Carlo Ginori and the Doccia Museum’ in Kräftner (ed.), ibid., p. 191; Balleri, op. cit., 2014, p. 295.
3 Leonardo Ginori Lisci, La Porcellana di Doccia, Milan, 1963, p. 309.
4 Lankheit, op. cit., 1982, 17: 38.
5 AGL , XII, 5, f. XXIII, lett. 46, Balleri, op. cit., 2023, cat. no. 16b.
6 Balleri, ibid, cat no. 16b.
7 Inv. no. SK 571, Johann Kräftner (ed.), op. cit., p. 408.
8 Biancalana, op. cit., 2009, pp. 99-100.
9 inv. no. 90.123a,b, probably the example formerly sold at Sotheby’s, London, 13 July 1976, lot 83.
10 acc. no. 1990.250, illustrated in Kräftner (ed.), op. cit., 2005, p. 402, cat. no. 256; Biancalana, op. cit., 2009, p. 99; Winter, op. cit., 2003, p. 44, fig. 1. A second example of Tiberius is illustrated by John Winter, ibid., 2003, p. 43, cat. no. 5.
11 illustrated in Biancalana, op. cit., 2009, p. 99.
12 Probably acquired by William James in Italy, prior to 1912, for the Italian Room at West Dean. Illustrated in Kräftner (ed.), op. cit., 2005, p. 404, cat. no. 258.
13 acc. no. 1990.249, illustrated in Kräftner (ed.), op. cit., 2005, p. 406, cat. no. 261; Winter, op. cit., 2003, p. 44, fig. 2.
14 The Pandolfini lot entry references a surviving bust depicting Julius Caesar formerly in the Costantini Collection, Rome, probably the abovementioned example illustrated in Lankheit, op. cit., 1980.
15 Sotheby’s would like to thank Alessandro Biancalana for bringing this example to our attention.

Sotheby's. The Giordano Collection: Une Vision Muséale Part I, Paris, 26 November 2024