sht. 12
Giuseppe Valadier
B 1790 ca.
B 425 x 300 mm
A
Giuseppe Valadier, Table clock with the variant of an ornamental design in the Egyptian taste or of classical inspiration, c. 1785, graphite, pen, brown ink, brown, grey, green, pink, red and dark red wash on paper, 425 x 290 mm.; inscription in pen upper right: “B”. We know of several (at least three) clocks inspired very closely by this design, that were manufactured in the Valadier workshop starting in the mid-1780s, one of which was intended for the Casino Nobile in the Villa Borghese. A clock very close to the design in the Faenza album, though with a number of variations, appears in a faint pencil sketch (now in a private collection) by the Sienese architect Agostino Fantastici in Rome in 1806, depicting a clock in the Egyptian taste set on a mantlepiece inside the Casino Nobile in the Villa Borghese (González-Palacios in L’oro di Valadier 1997, p. 139; González-Palacios 2018, pp. 242-245, p. 434, fig. 9_35, p. 435, fig. 9_36; González-Palacios 2019, p. 103).
Numerous elements from this drawing are also found in two of the six clocks commissioned by Queen Maria Carolina of Naples from the Roman architect Carlo Albacini to mark Crown Prince Francesco’s marriage to Maria Clementina of Austria in 1797. Albacini called on Giuseppe Valadier and Filippo Tagliolini to assist him in designing and manufacturing the clocks, which were made between 1796 and 1797 (Rotili 2018, pp. 248-257).
Bibliography: González-Palacios in L’oro di Valadier 1997, p. 139, n. 32, González-Palacios 2018, p. 245, fig. 5_37; Leone 2019a, p. 83; Leone 2019b, pp. 74, 79; Rotili 2018, p. 254, fig. 8; Valadier . Segno e architettura 1985, pp. 397, 399, n. 563.
B
Giuseppe Valadier, Table clock with two atlases and a circular clock face, c. 1790, graphite, yellow, green, dark green, grey and red wash on paper, 425 x 300 mm.; numbered upper left: “14”; inscription in pen upper right: “A”.
We know of two clocks inspired by this design and another very similar design published by Valeriani in 1997, one now in a private collection, the other in the Museo Duca di Martina in the Villa Floridiana in Naples (Valeriani in L’oro di Valadier 1997, p. 139; González-Palacios 2018, p. 242, fig. 5_34; González-Palacios 2019, p. 102).
Bibliography: González-Palacios 2018, p. 242, fig. 5_33; Leone 2019a, p. 83; Leone 2019b, p. 74; Valeriani in L’oro di Valadier 1997, p. 205, n. 86.
