An introduction to Neapolitan and Sicilian furniture

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2004 by Helen Costantino Fioratti

Few American collectors have yet discovered the many regional differences in the Italian decorative arts. Auction houses and many museums outside of Italy describe pieces as Italian at best, and, if painted or lacquered, usually as Venetian. If an object is judged to be in the Renaissance style and is made of walnut, it is listed as Tuscan. Southern Italian decorative arts are among the least studied.

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Tuscan influence became evident in Naples's artistic production early on. The political and cultural ties between the kingdom of Naples and Florence continued to influence the artistic production of Naples even after the Spanish conquest of 1504.

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The Spanish viceroys were great patrons of art, shipping quantities of paintings and decorative arts from Italy to Spain, particularly to the palace of El Buen Retiro built between 1631 and 1640 near Madrid by Philip IV (r. 1621-1665). New palaces were built in Naples, such as those at Pio del Monte della Misericordia (1658-1672) and the Palazzo Carafa di Maddaloni (redesigned 1661-1665), and many older palaces were reconstructed. The style in vogue was baroque with a Spanish accent characterized by exuberant decoration tempered by a certain solemnity.

Northern artisans brought their talents to Naples in the late sixteenth and early seven-teenth centuries. The Roman sculptor Pietro Bernini (1562-1629) arrived about 1584, the Roman painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610) about 1606, and the Bergamo architect and sculptor Cosimo Fanzago (see Pl. VI) about 1608, giving impetus to the new baroque style in both architecture and the decorative arts.

Furniture in this style itself had an architectural character and was more massive than that produced elsewhere in Italy. Console tables had elaborately carved supports incorporating tritons, putti, and mermaids set amid scrolling vegetation. Walnut center and refectory tables generally had single-plank tops supported by lyre-shaped legs and iron stretchers, the latter a Spanish legacy. Elsewhere in Italy wood stretchers were the norm.

The most prestigious pieces of furniture made in Naples were stipi, or table cabinets. Usually of exotic woods inlaid with ivory, tortoiseshell, and the like, they were created by immigrant northern craftsmen, such as Theodore de Voghel (see Pl. IX), as well as by local artisans such as Giovanni Battista de Curtis, and Gennaro Picicato. (1) Fanzago lived in Naples from the age of seventeen and maintained an atelier that made elaborate colored-marble decorations of flowers, fruit, garlands, and geometric designs for walls, floors, and furniture.

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Spanish domination came to an end with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The Austrians, who prevailed until 1734, were ousted by a Bourbon and a son of Philip V (r. 1700-1724, 1724-1746), king of Spain. Charles IV, king of the two Sicilies (r. 1734-1759), later Charles III of Spain (r. 1759-1788), was warmly welcomed by the Neapolitans. Under his rule Naples flourished in every way. The nobility and peasantry alike were lured from the provinces to the city by the patronage awarded by the court and the many foreign embassies. Under the rule of the Bourbons French furniture models modified the local baroque forms. Neapolitan furniture became more curvaceous, although it was still less graceful than that made in France and in other parts of Italy. The most recognizable decorative motif on Neapolitan furniture of the eighteenth century is a daisy or star motif with eight or ten points.

Charles established a number of workshops based on those established by the Medicis in Florence, including ones for tapestry, porcelain, and pietre dure. The latter, established in 1738, was headed by Francesco Ghinghi (1689-1766), a Florentine medalist and expert gem engraver who had studied modeling with the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), the foremost sculptor in the late baroque style. Ghinghi brought a group of nine or ten artisans with him from Florence, including the cabinetmaker Gaspare Donnini (d. 1780), who, after Ghingi's death, took over as director. The pietre dure workshop continued to produce flower and bird designs based on Florentine models after they stopped being made in Florence, with one design of flowers and pearls dating as late as 1773 to 1787. By that time, tables were generally decorated with geometric designs in the neoclassical taste. Neapolitan workshops also produced scagliola, a composition substance that could closely imitate pietre dure decoration. In Salerno, near Naples, Januarius Mannelli produced fine scagliola in the early eighteenth century (Pl. I).

Charles also founded the Capodimonte porcelain manufactory on the grounds of the Palazzo Reale di Capodimonte in 1736 and staffed it with specialists from the Meissen porcelain manufactory (founded 1710) in Meissen, Germany. The Capodimonte porcelain manufactory was moved to Naples proper in 1743, and from 1745 was directed by Carlo Coccorese, a student of the famous north Italian maiolica painter Francesco Antonio II Saverio Grue (1686-1746). The factory's greatest achievement was the Salottino di Porcellana (little porcelain salon) created between 1757 and 1759 for the Palazzo Reale in Portici, which was built between 1738 and 1742. The walls of the salon were covered with ceramic panels omamented with painted and relief chinoiserie decoration. The factory closed in 1759 when Charles succeeded to the Spanish throne. Subsequently it was transferred to a new building in El Buen Retiro.