A Capodimonte porcelain group of an artist and model, 'Il Ritratto' by Giuseppe Gricci, circa 1750

Christie’s London, 7 October 1996, lot 257;

Giovanni & Gabriella Barilla Collection, Geneva, sold Sotheby’s London, 14 March 2012, lot 193.

This figure group, one of only three known, belongs to a series modelled by Giuseppe Gricci and known as ‘La vita domestica’. The series depicted everyday scenes from aristocratic and bourgeois life, in which Gricci aimed to bring a sense of both intimacy and elegance to his subjects. The theme came to the fore in the 18th century and was represented and spread through the works of contemporary artists of various nationalities, among them the Italian artist Pietro Longhi (1701-1785) and the French artists Chardin (1699-1779) and Natoire (1700-1777). For these groups, all depicting ‘interior’ scenes, Gricci seems to have drawn on a variety of sources, radically reworking them to bring a distinct sense of unity to the series, but making it difficult to determine his pictorial sources with absolute certainty. 

‘Il Ritratto’ was perhaps intended as a commentary on the cult of portraiture and was possibly inspired by two paintings by Pietro Longhi. See Caròla-Perrotti, Le Porcellane dei Borbone di Napoli, Capodimonte e Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, 1743-1806, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 1986, pp. 180-181, where the author persuasively suggests that the two component figures may be derived from Longhi’s La Lezione di geografia (Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice), as the artist in the group follows the didactic attitude of the teacher in the painting, and II concerto di famiglia (Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice), as the standing lady in the group looks more as though she is singing than posing for a portrait.

Only two other examples of this model appear to be recorded, the first was formerly in the de Ciccio collection and is now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, inventory no. 378 (IC6421). The museum’s example is illustrated in several publications including, Civiltà del '700 a Napoli 1734-1799, exhibition catalogue, Florence, 1980, vol. II, p. 115, no. 347b; A. Caróla-Perrotti, ibid., Naples, 1986, pp. 180-181, no. 119; N. Spinosa (ed.), Sovrane fragilità: Le Fabbriche Reali di Capodimonte e di Napoli, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2007, no. 21.d, and more recently in Ritorno al barocco da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 2009, vol. II, pp. 194-195, no. 4.86. The second example was sold at Christie’s London, 27 April 1998, lot 141.