A Naples porcelain Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea factory 'Panchina del Real Passeggio' group, circa 1795

With Segre padre & figlio, Rome (applied paper label);

Il Ponte casa d'aste, 16 April 2014, lot 256.

'Panchini' groups, featuring figures of young couples or family groups seated on benches, together with single or pairs of standing figures, all representing the Neapolitan bourgeoisie promenading in fashionable dress in a gently satirical way, were created as part of a table centrepiece celebrating the people of Naples. The groups possibly formed part of a dessert service intended to commemorate the Passegio Reale, made perhaps to accompany the royal 'Servizio delle Vedute del Regno' or 'Servizio del'Oca', commissioned by Ferdinand IV, King of Naples in 1792 (see lot 355 for a plate from this service). For a discussion of these centrepiece groups and figures see A. Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, 1743-1806, exhibition catalogue, Naples 1986, pp. 442-223 and p. 477; see also pp. 486-487, cat. no. 430, for four 'Panchini' groups, attributed to Filippo Tagliolini. Caròla-Perrotti, op. cit., p. 477, mentions that archival records indicate that the painter Giovanni Battista Polidoro was paid for decorating 75 such figures and suggests that the models were probably by Filippo Tagliolini, based on some stylistic similarities to signed pieces by the sculptor, and on the fact that all the sculptural elements of the royal services have been designed by him. The originals supplied to the court were decorated but further examples, coloured and white, were sold by the factory. 

The Passegio Reale, or Royal Promenade, was a large park built by Ferdinand IV in the 1780s on the coast between Naples and the port of Mergellinam. Although intended for the enjoyment of the nobility, it was opened to the wealthy bourgeoise of Naples for special holidays such as the Festa di Piedigrotta.

Two 'Panchina del Real Passeggio' groups were sold at Bonhams, London, 7 December 2017, lots 88 and 89 and another was sold at Sotheby's, London, 19 April 2007, lot 50.