A Jewelled Gold and Enamel Presentation Snuff Box, Carl Martin Weishaupt & Söhne, Hanau, Circa 1850 and Later

Vittorio Emmanuele II (1820-1878) inherited the throne of Piedmont-Sardinia before assuming the title of King over a unified Italian state. During the Wars of Italian Unification, he operated closely alongside wily Sardinian Prime Minister Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, and revolutionary general, Giuseppi Garibaldi, to ultimately conquer Rome in 1870. This rendered Vittorio Emmanuele II a prominent figure of the nineteenth century Italian Risorgimento. Simultaneously a political vision and a cultural movement, the Risorgimento ushered in a new age of artistic output in this period. Vittorio Emmanuele II’s famous monument in the centre of Rome offers a manifestation of these ideals, presenting the monarch (‘Padre della Patria’) as a lynchpin between Italy’s romanticised future and Rome’s classical past.