Gricci's Pietà, a new acquisition at Capodimonte

An important piece of Capodimonte's identity returns home to complete the story of the Royal Porcelain Factory founded by Charles of Bourbon in 1743: a small but extraordinary masterpiece, the Pietà by Giuseppe Gricci, the King's modeler, an extremely rare terracotta piece that scholars identified about twenty years ago on the international art market. "It was thrilling to bring this work back to Naples, where it was created, and admire it up close," says Eike Schmidt, director of the Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte. "There is no other terracotta model in the city's public collections that can be attributed, like this one, to the hand of the Royal Factory's renowned master modeler. The clay model sculpted by Gricci is, in fact, the stage of the work where one can most immediately grasp the signature and figurative culture of this great Florentine artist, whom Charles of Bourbon brought with him, first to Naples and then to Madrid. We wanted to share this acquisition immediately with the many visitors who flock to the Museum and Royal Wood during the summer. This small exhibition is intended as a precious preview of the new porcelain section, expected in a few months."

"Gricci's Pietà, the King's Modeler. Capodimonte's New Acquisition. Between Terracotta and Porcelain" is the title of the exhibition, running until October 28. On this occasion, the new terracotta from the Museum and Royal Wood is compared with Gricci's porcelain Pietà with Saint John the Evangelist from the Duca di Martina Museum. The pyramidal construction is similar to Michelangelo's Pietà, with Christ's body resting on Mary's lap and the figures joined by loose drapery. Comparing the two groups—the terracotta and the porcelain—reveals Gricci's stylistic evolution on the theme of the Pietà: more theatrical and detached in the porcelain, where pain is sublimated, more human and intimate in the terracotta, where the Madonna's gesture of wiping away tears expresses maternal suffering.

The dialogue between the two works was staged in Room 20 on the second floor of the Museum, where Annibale Carracci's famous Pietà is displayed. The painting, presumably created for the private devotion of Cardinal Odoardo in the 18th century at the Palazzo Reale in Naples, is characterized by a tormented yet intimate grief. The monumental stance of the two protagonists and the sculptural rendering of certain details, such as the clean folds of the Virgin's robe, have made the work a universal model for painters, sculptors, engravers, and modelers in the interpretation of this iconography. Gricci also appears to be influenced by it, echoing many elements of the canvas in his two sculptured groups: for example, in Christ's abandoned limbs, which unfold in continuity with the shroud draped over the rocks.

The presentation was attended by Luigi Gallo, interim director of the Vomero National Museums, and Riccardo Naldi, professor of modern art history at the University of Naples "L'Orientale," who was the first to recognize Gricci's terracotta group in 2007.

Giuseppe Gricci, a refined Florentine modeler and sculptor, was active as a creator of sacred subjects for the royal court from the very early years of the Royal Porcelain Factory of Capodimonte, and between 1744 and 1745 he worked on the theme of the Pietà on several occasions. In a document published in 1888, Minieri Riccio refers to Gricci as having "made a porcelain Pietà and a maensola with its plaster cast" in April 1744. The terracotta, which, due to the variation in the movement of the Virgin's right arm, cannot be considered a direct model for the porcelain group in the Museo Duca di Martina, nevertheless allows us to follow the development process of the theme. The traces of paint would seem to suggest the model was used as a test base for painted decorations, as documented by a polychrome porcelain example in the Museo Municipal in Madrid.