A Capodimonte porcelain chinoiserie coffee cup and saucer, circa 1750

R. Spencer C. Copeland Collection, Sotheby's, London, 16 March 1976, lot 49;

Christie’s, London, 24 May 2011, lot 62.

Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806, December 1986 - April 1987, no. 23

A. Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea 1743-1806, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1986, p. 74, no. 23

Decoration featuring chinoiseries was employed at the Capodimonte factory from the earliest years of production and appears in relation to the work of the painter Giuseppe della Torre, registered in the reports of the treasurer Carola in 1744, which mention 'a box which is round and another with Chinese [decorations]'. The decoration on the cup and saucer in the present lot reflects the contemporary fashion for oriental-inspired ornament which had taken hold in central Europe by the mid-18th century and which was heavily influenced by wares made at the Meissen factory, drawing on sketches made by J. G. Höroldt in the 1720s. In 1746, Giovanni Caselli, who was documented as a painter at the Neapolitan court from 1737 and was active at the factory from 1744 until his death in 1752, requested from the extraordinary ambassador to Paris, Giacomo Milano Franco d'Aragona, Prince of Ardore, 'five or six dozen Chinese prints with figures, towns and flowers but all of the same type'. The prince advised Caselli that the French market was not the best place to find such material and suggested that he turn to cities in Bavaria, specifically Nuremburg and Augsburg, for sources. The combination of softly painted landscapes with tooled solid gold-ground chinoiserie figures with delicately painted faces represents the Capodimonte's unique artistic response to the fashion for the orient, drawing both on the skill of its painters to reproduce charming landscapes and on the chinoiserie figures in gilding found on Meissen Hausmaler wares decorated at Augsburg in the Seuter workshop. For an in-depth discussion of this type of decoration and another cup and saucer with similar scenes see, A. d’Agliano, et al., European Art and Porcelain in the Vimercati Sanseverino Collection, Livorno, 2025, pp. 394-397, cat. no. 95.

Another coffee cup and saucer probably from the same service as the present example is illustrated by A. Mottola Molfino, L'Arte della Porcellan in Italia, Il Piemonte, Roma e Napoli, vol. II, Busto Arsizio 1977, col. pl. XXVI, and was in the Vivolo collection, sold at Sotheby's, Milan, 13 November 2007, lot 206. Another is in the Vimercati Sanseverino Collection, op cit., pp. 394-97, cat. no. 95, one of a pair in the collection of Giovanni and Gabriella Barilla, Geneva, sold at Sotheby's, London, 14 March 2012, lot 226.