The History of Capodimonte Porcelain

Summary:  Italian Capodimonte porcelain is regarded as the finest and most perfect grade of artistic pottery in the world.  Collectors world wide highly esteem its exacting craftsmanship, marvelously detailed crockery and lifelike fruit, flowers and figurines.  An art form who’s origins date back to the Tang dynasty (618-907 China) found it’s home in Naples Italy with it’s first pieces fired in 1759.  Through the years the artistry has been perfected and jumped a quantum leap forward with the invention of soft paste porcelain.  While creating pottery using soft paste porcelain is exceedingly more demanding, the quality of the finished item is exquisitely perfected.  This item of Italian Capodimonte Arte' represents the continuity, research and innovation of a superior tradition, having melted the creative Neapolitan fantasy together with formal and chromatic originality: Veneto.

Most Capodimonte pieces are marked with some variation of the blue “N” under a crown mark; many of them are also marked with other factory specific marks.

“The Capodimonte name was synonymous with the finest quality Neapolitan porcelain and ceramics from that period onward,” the Italian site explains.  The Royal Factory, which no longer exists, came to being when King Charles of Naples married Maria Amalia.  She was the granddaughter of Augustus II, who in addition to being the King of Poland, also founded the first European hard paste porcelain factory in Meissen, Germany.

King Charles developed a curiosity about porcelain through his new wife’s family. This interest turned into a passion that led to many years of research and development before the Royal Factory came about.

The manufactory was founded in 1743 when the Spanish king Charles and his wife Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony[1] instituted the Royal Factory of Capodimonte adjacent to the royal palace of Capodimonte, Naples, their recently-completed summer residence. During this period the chemist Livio Ottavio Schepers improved the composition of the soft paste porcelain body.  Above all other early contributors, the sculptor Giuseppe Gricci and the decorator Casella contributed to the creation of significant works of art.  Considered their most inspired creations, the boudoir of Queen Maria Amalia was entirely paneled in porcelain, from the walls to the lamp.

With this factory they gave birth to one of the most famous Italian forms of art.  The King collected all of their masterpieces in the well known Museum of Capodimonte.  Following King Charles, his son King Ferdinand IV continued the production of this particular decorative porcelain -- the Real Fabrica Ferdinandea.  Under the direction of the artist Domenico Venuti the Museum of Capodimonte enjoyed its greatest period of popular acclaim.  There was a expansive production of vases and plates, many of which were used to enrich the King's table.  Through the charity of his estate many of these dinner services are now in the Capodimonte Museum.

During the Napoleonic period Murat was much more interested in investing money for the Napoleonic wars.  The casualty of conflict caused a period of change in the production of objects in porcelain.  The important royal table set didn't interest the French king and for this reason these objects were substituted by the creation of decorative objects made of flowers more suitable for the middle class.  This marked the true birth of the art style we recognize as "Capodimonte".  Capodimonte porcelain matured into the production of cups, vases and objects with fruit and flowers, all made and decorated by the hands of experienced Neapolitan artists giving birth to the first artisan guild factories.

Once the formula for soft porcelain paste was perfected, many skilled craftsmen and artisans, both men and women, worked to produce fine Capodimonte pieces.  During the factory’s greatest years plates, vases, small and large bowls, tea and coffee cups, large and small jugs, sugar bowls, tea caddies, teapots, snuff-boxes, and walking stick handles mounted in gold are among the fine pieces produced at the factory in Italy.

The manufacture of soft paste porcelain is generally longer and more complicated than the hard paste variety as there are a greater number of secondary substances involved in its composition.  Soft paste porcelain is also more difficult to work as it is more delicate and has a lower index of cohesion than the hard paste variety.  As a result items finished in the soft paste porcelain are more fragile, their glazing being more prone to cracking, than hard paste porcelain; thus requiring the skills of expert artisans.

To our delight, objects produced in soft paste porcelain are generally much warmer and richer in appearance, there being a much broader range of colors with which they can be decorated.  The finished art is truly worthy of the exacting effort required to produce them.

Particularly as a result of the French Revolution, the industry declined.  In May 1818 Poulard sold half of the factory buildings, moulds, lathes, tools and models as well as unused pastes and unfinished works to Claudio Guillard and Giovani Tourné.  In August 1819 Poulard sold the remaining half of the factory to Francesco Paolo del Re and the rest which remained to del Re in December of the same year.  This effectively concluded the life of the Royal Factory which had served to inspire European Porcelain production for 64 years.

The masterpieces of the Royal Factory of Capodimonte were astonishing.  They demonstrated the finest of Italian skill and craftsmanship.  The Royal Factory nurtured the skill and flair of the individual artists who worked there, in particular the master Tagliolini.

In little more than half a century the Royal Factory had produced the finest porcelain and ceramic dinnerware in all of Europe.  Ornaments created there were both superb and unique.  Conside the Bisquit, which did not redden with age (unlike those of Saxony and Sèvres) and the miniatures, which were magnificent in their sculpture and detail and which may be said to be the rarest and most prized of all European Porcelain.  Capodimonte porcelain has a rich and storied foundation which is reflected in the exceptional quality of its current creativity.