Statuette thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 139, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Statuette

late 18th century-early 19th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Doccia Porcelain Factory (manufacturer)
Place of origin
Doccia (made)

Statuette in hard-paste porcelain of Hercules, painted with enamels and gilded. A nude bearded figure leaning against a tree-trunk over which a lion skin is thrown. He holds three golden apples. His left hand rests on a club. Supported on a square black plinth.


Object details

Categories
Ceramics
Porcelain
Object type
Statuette
Materials and techniques
Hard-paste porcelain painted with enamels and gilded
Hard Paste Porcelain
Painted
Gilded
Brief description
Statuette in hard-paste porcelain of Hercules, Doccia porcelain factory, Doccia, late 18th century-first decades of 19th century
Physical description
Statuette in hard-paste porcelain of Hercules, painted with enamels and gilded. A nude bearded figure leaning against a tree-trunk over which a lion skin is thrown. He holds three golden apples. His left hand rests on a club. Supported on a square black plinth.
Dimensions
  • Height: 15.2cm
  • Width: 6.9cm
Gallery label
Hercules Porcelain After the statue known as the Farnese Hercules ITALY (DOCCIA); late 18th century Gift of Mr J.H.Fitzhenry C.28-1910 (Label draft attributed to John V. G. Mallet, ca. 1995)(ca. 1995)
Credit line
Given by Mr. J. H. Fitzhenry
Object history
After the statue known as the Farnese Hercules in Naples.
Subjects depicted
Apples
Hercules
Bibliographic references
  • Bayley, Stephen, ed. Taste: an exhibition about values in design. London : Boilerhouse Project, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983. Pl. 4.
  • Frescobaldi Malenchini, Livia ed. With Balleri, Rita and Rucellai, Oliva, ‘Amici di Doccia Quaderni, Numero VII, 2013, The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection’, Edizioni Polistampa, Firenze, 2014 pp. 70-71, Cat. 48 48. Statuette of the Farnese Hercules end of the 18th century-first decades of the 19th century porcelain painted in colours painted under the base “28” h 15,3 cm inv. C.28-1910 gift: Mr J.H. Fitzhenry, Esq. The statuette is a reproduction of an antique marble statue of Hercules at Rest which is in the Archaeological Museum in Naples; the statue is part of the Farnese collection which was brought to Naples from 1786 (RAUSA 2009, p. 21-22).We do not know which model was used for the statuette but, considering its small size it is probably related to a group of Classical style porcelains listed in the Inventory of Models (about 1791-1806): “N. 1There are14 statuettes, some from Florence and some from other places […] The Third one is a Bacchante […] and all of them have their moulds” (LANKHEIT 1982, p. 153, 76:1). This refers to a series of statuettes of presumably the same size, for which we know of four examples having the same characteristics (MANNINI 1997, p. 62-63), one of which, the Nymph with a Panther, exists also in a decorated version (cat. 46).The small size of these statuettes suggests that they were used as part of a table setting, as was typical in the late 18th century for figures produced by other manufacturers, like the biscuits made by Giovanni Volpato in Rome (A. González-Palacios, in FASTO ROMANO 1991, p. 220, cat. 187) and the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea. In this statuette the lion pelt has been decorated with spots as though it was a leopard skin and this suggests that the artists at Doccia no longer had knowledge of the first of the Labors of Hercules in Porcelain 71 which the hero kills the Nemean lion to obtain his pelt (FERRARI 1999, p. 282). Among the various biscuits that were produced during the Campana casting project in the 1960s (BALLERI 2011, p. 40) there was an example of this Hercules which allowed us to identify the number of the mould that had been used to make it. Research conducted on the list of Capodimonte moulds, the Catalogo Modelli e Forme di Capo di Monte (AMD, arm. 3, 1940s, n. 246) revealed that this statuette continued to be made up until the 1940s when the crowned “N” mark was being used to identify this type of production(CARÒLA-PERROTTI 2008, p. 73). R.B. Bibliography: MORAZZONI 1935, plate LXXVIII
  • p. 234 Settis, Salvatore., Anguissola, Anna., and Gasparotto, Davide eds. Serial/Portable Classic: The Greek Canon and its Mutations. Fondazion Prada: Milan, 2015. ISBN 9788887029611.
Collection
Ceramics Collection
Accession number
C.28-1910

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O307107/statuette-doccia-porcelain-factory/
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