Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692 - 1779), was the nephew of Pope Clement XI and considered the most ambitious and learned private collector of antiquities in Rome. He employed the young Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716 / 17 - 1799) as his restorer from 1734. This relationship brought the talented sculptor many commissions from foreign tourists and other wealthy patrons, for whom he sourced and restored antique statues, along with making copies of the best examples in Rome. He also occasionally created original works ‘all'antica’ (in the antique style) - such as the present work.

Remaining consistent with ancient practices, Cavaceppi rarely signed his works. Some of his statues were known to be his own original designs, however, he was so talented that others were confused as authentic antiquities. Many of his works can be identified by he particular ‘c-scroll’ socle plate design (inspired by ancient examples), a detail which became indicative of Cavaceppi’s hand. Indeed, the present bust has a very similar socle design to a rare, signed work by Cavaceppi in the Getty Museum.

Interestingly, among the works by Cavaceppi that were listed in the post-humous inventory of his studio casts, there is a plaster bust of 'The young Nero’ - which could represent a plaster cast after this work.

Cavaceppi also worked as a restorer for the pope at the Museo Clementino. His fame was firmly established between 1768 and 1772, when he published three volumes of engraved images of works he had restored or possessed, the Raccolta d'antiche statue, busti, teste cognite. As a place for the restoration and selling of antiquities, sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi's workshop in Rome was one of the most famous stops for British tourists in the second half of the 1700s. 

Until perhaps the second half of the twentiteth century, undertaking a Grand Tour to study the surviving treasures of antiquity was considered an essential rite of passage for the elite young men in western European society, marking the end of their formal education and the beginning of their life as a ‘gentleman’. Such a tour became popular across Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (excluding the period of the Napoleonic wars c.1803 - 1815), but was only available to the very rich. It could be described as something between a prolonged holiday, a cultural finishing school and an extended antiques-buying trip. As such, many artists set-up in Rome (which was the traditional destination of the Grand Tour) to cater for the well-heeled clientele who were looking for portraits, paintings, sculptures and objects inspired by their to travels, that they could take back home and decorate their country houses with. Ancient and neoclassical sculpture therefore became a quintessential aesthetic of the English country house. In many ways, this phenomenon was an attempt to realise the dream of the Mediterranean, by installing neoclassical and ancient sculptures that had been purchased on the Grand Tour.

Selected bibliography

Cavaceppi, B. Raccolta d'antiche statue busti teste cognite ed altre sculture antiche suelte ristaurate da Bartolomeo Cavaceppi scultore romano, Rome, 1772