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Lot Essay
These two remarkable and very rare models of birds are from Rome's first porcelain factory, run by 'Captain' Filippo Coccumos between 1761 and 1781. Only four other marked pieces are known to have survived, and little is known about the short-lived factory. Coccumos was asked to open a porcelain factory by the Reveranda Camera Apostolica of the Vatican, as no other Roman factory existed at the time,1<\sup> and in 1761 Pope Clement XIII gave Coccumos tax benefits and granted him the exclusive right to produce hard-paste porcelain in Rome for forty years. In exchange for these privileges Coccumos undertook to supply (annually) a porcelain figure of a Saint on the feast day of San Pietro and Paolo (29th June). Samuel Hietz, an arcanist from Saxony, is recorded as being his accomplice,2<\sup> and Carlo Coccorese3<\sup> is recorded as the most important modeller. The interlaced C mark has been ascribed to Coccorese, but as Coccumos's name also shared the initial C this is not certain. The factory was in the Monastery of San Lorenzo on the via Panisperna in Rome, and it seems that it was rather unsuccessful, as three years later Coccumos was forced to ask for a loan from the Vatican. After this, it appears that there is no mention of the factory in the Vatican's documents until 1781 when Coccumos sold the concern to Lanfranco Bosio and Filippo Bianchini. The only known archival reference to the factory in the intermediary period is a testimony given by the abbot Grisellini, which states that '... tutto andò in fumo, perché l'imprenditore allo spirito di somma loquacityà ed impostura non aggiungeva delle cognizioni in tal materia' (all failed, because the director was intelligent but he didn't have the required knowledge about the material).4<\sup>
A few years after Bosio and Bianchini had bought the factory it closed in July 1784. Pope Pius VI withdrew the exclusive privilege of porcelain making from them and a legal situation ensued, in which Bosio and Bianchini blamed Coccumos, who they maintained had sold them faulty materials. The closed factory was investigated (among the recorded findings were six furnaces), and in 1792 it was ruled that Coccumos was not guilty.
It is clear the present models of birds suffered substantial sagging during the firing, and the second bird (illustrated right) has areas of one wing which are unglazed, suggesting that it sagged onto another object in the kiln during firing. The date of the birds is currently unknown, but as other successfully fired and dated pieces have survived, the birds presumably date to the period preceding those. Four other surviving Coccumos pieces are known; a group of Saint Anthony and the Christ Child in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan,5<\sup> two figures of Saint Francis in ecstasy in the Villa Cagnola alla Gazzada in Varese6<\sup> and a recently discovered figure of Saint Paul now in the possession of a collector in Rome.7<\sup>The only other known piece was described by the 19th century scholar C. Drury E. Fortnum, who saw a Deposition group in the dealer Corvisieri's shop in Rome in 1870. He described the 'extremely well-modelled group' as being 'executed in a hard artificial white porcelain of a grey shade, very similar to that of Doccia'.8<\sup>
1. Francesco Stazzi, Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1964, p. 126.
2. Published in the Giornale d'Italia spettante alla scienza naturale... in Venice in 1766, tav. III, p. 218, cited by Lucia Arbace, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 1985, Vol. 31.
3. Coccorese previously worked in the Capodimonte factory at Naples.
4. Cited by Lucia Arbace, ibid, Vol. 31.
5. The reverse of this group is inscribed ROMA 1 MAG 1769, followed by an incised interlaced crowned C mark. See Giuseppe Morazzoni, Le Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1960, Vol. II, pl. 271, where he attributes the model to Carlo Coccorese and records that the group was formerly in the collection of baron A. De Eisner Eisenhof of Vienna (baron De Eisner Eisenhof had purchased it from the descendants of the Austrian Chancellor Metternich). Also see Francesco Stazzi, Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1964, pp. 126-127, where he discusses baron De Eisner Eisenhof's suggestion that the group was modelled by Carlo Coccorese, who had formerly been a 'modellatore' at Capodimonte.
6. Stazzi, ibid., p. 127, and Lucia Arbace, ibid, Vol. 31. These figures both have the inscription Petrus Morigi fecit Rome 1769, and the same interlaced crowned C marks. One of these is illustrated in Amministrazione del patrimonio della sede apostolica. La collezione Cagnola, 1999, Vol. II, Cat. no. 342, fig. XL.
7. The reverse of this figure is incised ROMA / I·MAG·1769 followed by the crowned interlaced C mark.
8. The group was incised 'ROMA·MAG·1769' above a crowned interlaced C mark. See C. Drury E. Fortnum, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica in the South Kensington Museum, London, 1873, p. 463, note 1.
A few years after Bosio and Bianchini had bought the factory it closed in July 1784. Pope Pius VI withdrew the exclusive privilege of porcelain making from them and a legal situation ensued, in which Bosio and Bianchini blamed Coccumos, who they maintained had sold them faulty materials. The closed factory was investigated (among the recorded findings were six furnaces), and in 1792 it was ruled that Coccumos was not guilty.
It is clear the present models of birds suffered substantial sagging during the firing, and the second bird (illustrated right) has areas of one wing which are unglazed, suggesting that it sagged onto another object in the kiln during firing. The date of the birds is currently unknown, but as other successfully fired and dated pieces have survived, the birds presumably date to the period preceding those. Four other surviving Coccumos pieces are known; a group of Saint Anthony and the Christ Child in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan,5<\sup> two figures of Saint Francis in ecstasy in the Villa Cagnola alla Gazzada in Varese6<\sup> and a recently discovered figure of Saint Paul now in the possession of a collector in Rome.7<\sup>The only other known piece was described by the 19th century scholar C. Drury E. Fortnum, who saw a Deposition group in the dealer Corvisieri's shop in Rome in 1870. He described the 'extremely well-modelled group' as being 'executed in a hard artificial white porcelain of a grey shade, very similar to that of Doccia'.8<\sup>
1. Francesco Stazzi, Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1964, p. 126.
2. Published in the Giornale d'Italia spettante alla scienza naturale... in Venice in 1766, tav. III, p. 218, cited by Lucia Arbace, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 1985, Vol. 31.
3. Coccorese previously worked in the Capodimonte factory at Naples.
4. Cited by Lucia Arbace, ibid, Vol. 31.
5. The reverse of this group is inscribed ROMA 1 MAG 1769, followed by an incised interlaced crowned C mark. See Giuseppe Morazzoni, Le Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1960, Vol. II, pl. 271, where he attributes the model to Carlo Coccorese and records that the group was formerly in the collection of baron A. De Eisner Eisenhof of Vienna (baron De Eisner Eisenhof had purchased it from the descendants of the Austrian Chancellor Metternich). Also see Francesco Stazzi, Porcellane Italiane, Milan, 1964, pp. 126-127, where he discusses baron De Eisner Eisenhof's suggestion that the group was modelled by Carlo Coccorese, who had formerly been a 'modellatore' at Capodimonte.
6. Stazzi, ibid., p. 127, and Lucia Arbace, ibid, Vol. 31. These figures both have the inscription Petrus Morigi fecit Rome 1769, and the same interlaced crowned C marks. One of these is illustrated in Amministrazione del patrimonio della sede apostolica. La collezione Cagnola, 1999, Vol. II, Cat. no. 342, fig. XL.
7. The reverse of this figure is incised ROMA / I·MAG·1769 followed by the crowned interlaced C mark.
8. The group was incised 'ROMA·MAG·1769' above a crowned interlaced C mark. See C. Drury E. Fortnum, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica in the South Kensington Museum, London, 1873, p. 463, note 1.