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Farnese Bull. A delicate giant of passion.

The next sale of porcelains, majolicas and pottery, which will be held on May 15th 2018, will include a wide choice of works mostly made by Eighteenth-century Italian manufactures. Bassano, together with Savona and Faenza, is among the centres that will be represented in the sale with a fine group of majolicas with “al tacchiolo” decorations. Among porcelains, Doccia: produced by this manufacture, worthy of note is a small, elegant plate, probably dated 1830, which portrays Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat (Madonna of the Magnificat). Its style seems to remind of the works by Abraham Constantin (1785-1855), a painter who worked for Sèvres manufacture and who was specialised in the reproduction of masterpieces. He started working in the Tuscan manufacture in the first half of the Nineteenth century.

A decorative, cream-coloured group of pottery (about 40 centimetres in height), made by the manufacture based in Palermo and founded by Baron Malvica at the end of the Nineteenth century and probably dated between 1801 and 1816, will be presented. It is the smaller version of a larger group depicting the Supplizio di Dirce (Dirce’s Torture), better known as Toro Farnese (Farnese Bull): found fragmented in 1545, the marble sculpture became immediately famous for its size and the pathos it conveys. It was then copied and reproduced using several materials, from copper to marble. The most renowned versions are the two versions made in biscuit by Naples’ Royal Manufacture. There are two other known versions made by the Sicilian manufacture, both attributed to Giuseppe Sebastiani, who worked there since 1801. The group that will be presented in the auction, despite not being marked and with some structural differences, is rather similar to one of such groups. Today, it belongs to one of the collections of the Museum of Capomonte. Another significant piece, the Madonna con il Bambino (Madonna with Infant Jesus), in glazed terracotta with a frame adorned with garlands of fruits, made by the Robbia’s furnaces in the Sixteenth century (1469-1530).