A cartouche with a crowned death's-head
Drawing
early 18th century (made)
early 18th century (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Drawing
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | A cartouche with a crowned death's-head (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Pasted in a folio album containing 53 pages, bound in brown 18th century tooled calf, with gold and green decorated end papers. |
| Brief description | Drawing, a cartouche, ornamented with a crowned death's-head, over a door, by Ferdiando Poletti, early 18th century. |
| Physical description | Drawing |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Bibliographic reference | Ward-Jackson, Peter, Italian Drawings Volume II. 17th-18th century, London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1980, p. 167.
The text is as follows:
POLETTI, FERDINANDO
(active early 18th century)
1093-1171
As Mr Allan Braham was the first to perceive, the drawings catalogued under this name were made for the funeral service of the Emperor Joseph I in S. Maria dell’Anima, the German church in Rome, in 1712. They are pasted in a folio album containing 53 pages, bound in brown 18th century tooled calf, with gold and green decorated end-papers. There is no title on the binding, but the drawing on the first page is headed Disegni originali del P. Guerini in ink in an 18th century hand.
Some of the pages are stamped in dark purple ink with the Ex Libris of Dr W. Müseler. The album was included, and two drawings were illustrated, in the Marlborough Rare Books Catalogue, 1963, no. 50, with an attribution to the Neapoliton painter Domenico Guarini. But nothing more is known of the provenance of the book, which was bought by the Museum in 1969. Among the drawings for the funeral of Joseph I, are others connected with the funeral of his father Leopold I, which took places in 1705. These are catalogued separately under the name Carlo Fontant, who was responsible for the designs, having held the appointment of architect to the Emperor. Joseph Schmidlin in his Geschiechte der deutschen Nationalkirche in Rom, S. Maria dell’Anima (Freiburg im Bresgau, 1906, pp. 575ff.) gives an ccount of the two funerals and of the sources on which a history of them may be based. The most important printed source for Jospeh’s funeral is the contemporary accoubt of Giangi Vittorri Romano: ‘Esatta Relazione del funebre catafalco inalzato nell’imperial chiesa dell’Anima…in occasione delle solenni essequie par l’Augustissimo Imperatore Giuseppe Primo. Con disegno, dispisizione & invensione del Signor Ferdinando Poletti Romano Architetto, allievo di Casare Corvara dif el. Mem. Insigne Architetto di detta Imperiale Chiesa,’ Rome 1712.
This established the interesting fact that the designs are not by Carlo Fontana (who was now 74 years old and in bad health) but by Ferdinando Poletti, a Roman and a pupil of Cesare Corvara (1650-1708), architect to the church of S. Maria dell’Anima. This little-known artist, presumably an architect, was probably identical, as Braham observes, with the Ferdianndo Poletti who was active, especially as a designer of temporary decorations, in the service of Austian Viceroy of Nepals in the years 1720-21. (See F. Mancini, Feste ed apparati civili e religiosi in Naoli, 1968, p. 41 and passim.)
All the drawings in the album are in pen and ink and wash, unless otherwise stated. Many of them can be recognized in Vittorii’s description. They are accordingly listed here in groups in the same order as Vittorii.
LITERATURE Allan Braham, ‘Funeral decorations in eighteenth century Rome’ (Victoria nd Albert Museum Brochure no. 7), London, 1975.
What follows is to a great extent based on this study by mr Braham and on conversations with him. I am grateful to him for much valuable advice.
1097
A cartouche, ornamented with a crowned death’s-head, over a door
On two pages
23 ½ x 12 ½ (597 x 318) E.232-1969
The winged and crowned death’s-head holding up festoons of drapery suggests that this may be anearly design for the main door to the church. See no. 1094. But as the cartouche is similar to the cartouches that filled the arches in the nave (see no. 1112), the design may have been used for a door inside the church, possibly even for the main door, over which, according to Vittorii, there was ‘una Testa di Morte…formando un Cartellone, nel quale eravi…dipinto il Tempio dell’Immortalità…’ ue the scene show in no. 1101. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.232-1969 |
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| Record created | June 30, 2009 |
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