Giacomo and Giovanni Zoffoli Italian, active mid to late 18th century after the antique

The Alfred Trapnell Collection, Bristol, late 19th century

Zoffoli's reductions after the antique Agrippina and Menander were often paired together, as for instance in the important five-piece garniture centred by the Campidoglio Marcus Aurelius and flanked by the Medici and Borghese vases at Saltram Park, Devon. These were probably bought by Lord Boringdon who was in Rome in 1793.  In 1795 Charles Heathcote Tatham sent Henry Holland a copy of the Zoffoli catalogue together with those of Righetti (a rival foundry) and Volpato (who made porcelain reductions). Tatham held the Zoffoli foundry in high regard and was of the opinion that they produced better quality casts than contemporary French foundries.

The present two bronzes are numbered 5 and 8 respectively in the Zoffoli catalogue, there described as Agrippina Madre di Nerone (priced at 15 zecchini) and Silla Console, sedente (20 zecchini). Winckelmann thought it represented Sulla but it is now known to be Menander. Another cast of the Agrippina is in the collection of Mr. Anthony M. Clark.

Alfred Trapnell was a collector of important Plymouth and Bristol glass and Worcester porcelain and is believed to have given his name to the 'Trapnell pattern' of porcelain still in production by Spode and introduced circa 1901 by Thomas Goode & Co.  Trapnell's motto was 'If you are a collector you will never feel old'.

RELATED LITERATURE
Honour, pp.198-205, pls. 1 and 4; A Catalogue of Bristol and Plymouth Porcelain, with examples of Bristol Glass and Pottery, forming the collection made by Mr. Alfred Trapnell... London, 1912