A Volpato biscuit porcelain figure of The Barberini Faun, circa 1786-1800

Albert Koonce Harrison Collection, Charlotte North Carolina;

Christie's London, 7 June 2011, lot 108.

The Barberini Faun in Biscuit

This biscuit figure is based on the celebrated marble statue of the Barberini Faun (also called the Drunken or Sleeping Faun), regarded as a refined replica of a Pergamene bronze of the late 3rd or early 2nd century B.C., or perhaps even an original marble creation of that period. The statue is today preserved in the Glyptothek, Munich.

The marble takes its name from its first recorded owner, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, and is mentioned in a receipt for its restoration in 1628 and in the inventory of the Barberini sculpture collection compiled between 1632 and 1640. Around 1627, it entered the Barberini collection and remained in the family palace until 1820, when it passed into the hands of the Crown Prince of Bavaria.

Highly esteemed in the 17th century, it was considered not inferior to the Belvedere Torso, with which it shared both its fragmented condition and the unusual posture of a reclining figure (Honour 2003, fig. 3, p. 41). Some of its fame also derived from its supposed findspot: Castel Sant’Angelo, where it was said to have been unearthed during fortification works in 1624.

The faun reached the height of its fame in the second half of the 18th century, thanks partly to the Barberini family’s growing willingness to open their palace to travellers, but above all to the restoration carried out from 1799 by the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti (1746–1820). Pacetti’s intervention and promotion helped launch the statue into the international collectors’ market, sparking fierce competition among prominent French and English aristocrats, including Lucien Bonaparte. Rumours spread of the fabulous sums offered by the English.

In 1814, Cardinal Pacca placed a ban on its export, a measure vigorously supported by Antonio Canova. However, in 1819 the ban was lifted under the pressure of the Empress of Austria on behalf of her brother, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, who was said to be obsessed with acquiring the faun and was heard to call it “the most perfect statue in the world.” On 6 January 1820, the statue finally arrived in Munich.

Despite its enormous fame, reproductions of the Barberini Faun are surprisingly rare. The reluctance of the Barberini family to permit casts, together with the difficulty of finding a suitable domestic setting for such a sprawling and erotically charged figure, likely accounts for the scarcity of replicas and full-scale copies.

At the very moment when its reputation was at its peak, the faun was not reproduced in bronze, as might be expected, but in biscuit porcelain by Giovanni Volpato between 1786 and 1800. Volpato listed the model in his catalogue as Faune dormant du Palais Barberini, priced at six zecchini.

The Sunday Dinners of the Anglo-Veneto Club at Palazzo Venezia, Rome, 1799–1800

In the very years when Filippo Tagliolini (1745–1809) moved to Naples, where in 1781 he was appointed Chief Modeller of the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea under the direction of Domenico Venuti (1745–1817), the Venetian ambassador Girolamo Zulian (1730–1795) was hosting regular Sunday dinners at the Serenissima embassy in Palazzo Venezia, Rome.

The weekly gatherings brought together the leading figures of the Anglo-Venetian artistic colony in Rome: the engraver, archaeologist, and dealer Giovanni Volpato (1735–1803); the young Antonio Canova (1757–1822); Francesco Piranesi (1758–1810), son of Giovan Battista; and the Scottish antiquities dealer Gavin Hamilton.

The goal of this group was to address what they perceived as the decadence of contemporary art, opposing the frivolous and grotesque decoration of the Rococo. Their solution lay in the study of classical masterpieces, which provided the canonical models of beauty for the human form. In this context, the international clientele of collectors played a decisive role, spreading these ideals through prints and small-scale reproductions of antique sculptures.

Giovanni Volpato (1735–1803)

Born near Bassano del Grappa, Volpato founded his porcelain factory in Via Santa Prudenziana, Rome, in 1785 and later opened a shop in Via dei Greci. A close friend and early protector of Antonio Canova, Volpato was a very different figure from Tagliolini. Though himself a modeller, his position was more comparable to that of Venuti in Naples: he combined the roles of engraver, antiquities dealer, merchant, entrepreneur, and cultivated archaeologist. He also sponsored excavation campaigns.

Volpato assembled a team of the most skilled sculptor-restorers in Rome, including Vincenzo Pacetti (1746–1820) and Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716–1799), who provided the models for his small-scale copies after the antique. Most of his “Portable Classics” in biscuit porcelain were reductions of celebrated ancient statues. Among the few modern works he reproduced was Antonio Canova’s marble group Theseus and the Minotaur, commissioned by Zulian in 1781 and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Related Literature

F. Haskell, N. Penny, Taste and the Antique, London, 1981, fig. 16, p. 29; fig. 56, p. 95; no. 33, p. 202.

H. Honour, I trionfi di Volpato, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2003, fig. 8, p. 74.

A. d’Agliano, S. Guarino, Pinacoteca Capitolina: Porcellane europee e orientali, Milan, 2007, no. 407, p. 367.

A. d’Agliano, L. Melegati, Ricordi dell’antico, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2008, fig. 106, p. 240.

S. Settis, Serial/Portable Classic, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2015, no. PC83, p. 251.