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Glyptic Portraits of Eugène de Beauharnais: The Intaglios by Giovanni Beltrami and the Cameo by Antonio Berini
Abstract
Among the holdings of the Walters Art Museum is a French snuffbox (bearing a hallmark from the years 1819-38) made of horn and decorated with an intaglio portrait of Viceroy Eugène de Beauharnais (1781-1824) by the celebrated engraver Giovanni Beltrami (1770-1854) of Cremona. Another intaglio by Beltrami, probably lost, but known from casts, is practically identical; it bears an inscription referring to a glorious victory in a battle led by Beauharnais during the Russian retreat, on 23 October 1812 at Malo-Jaroslavets. Beltrami made numerous works for the viceroy. An analogous object is a cameo with portraits of Beauharnais and his wife Augusta Amelia, mounted on a tortoiseshell snuffbox now in the Musée national du Château de Malmaison. The cameo is signed by Antonio Berini (1770-1861), a famous Roman engraver who moved to Milan, where he worked for the imperial family, among others. Even though there are numerous portraits of Beauharnais, no others engraved on hardstones are known. The two snuffboxes are a part of the widespread phenomenon of snuffboxes bearing portraits, usually given as gifts by royalty and the nobility, and offer an important contribution to a deeper knowledge of the production of gemstones and snuffboxes in the first half of the nineteenth century.
This study resolves the rebus of identifying the unknown engraver not mentioned in any text of glyptic, nor testified by casts of gems and glass pastes, which signs POZZI three intaglios and two cameos, almost all unpublished, and which demonstrate great skill. This is the renowned Tuscan Francesco Pozzi (1790-1844), sculptor in Florence and Rome, and wax modeler. Its varied activity is reconstructed, then both the numerous and prestigious commissions and the five high quality gems are analyzed. An intaglio reproduces the famous painting by Jacques-Louis David, with Napoleon Bonaparte at the Passo del Gran S. Bernardo, two cameos portray the dukes of Modena and Reggio, Francesco IV and his wife Maria Beatrice Vittoria, an intaglio depicts Leopold I king of the Belgians and another an unidentified male bust.
Un grande quarzo citrino inciso è stato di recente venduto all’asta, in America, con una descrizione inesatta. Opera di Giovanni Beltrami (Cremona 1770-1854), questo intaglio rappresenta l’Antinoo Braschi. Le gemme incise raffiguranti Antinoo sono piuttosto comuni ma normalmente esse ritraggono il rilievo Albani, la statua capitolina o l’intaglio Marlborough. Il soggetto scelto per questo citrino inedito è, invece, insolito. L’Antinoo Braschi venne ritrovato nel 1793 andando ad arricchire le collezioni pontificie nel 1843. Esso fu molto apprezzato da Giuseppe Girometti (Roma, 1779-1851), che riprodusse il busto dell’Antinoo Braschi su numerosi cammei oggi conservati a Londra, in Vaticano e a Vienna. Anche Luigi Pichler (1773-1854) realizzò un intaglio, oggi perduto, con lo stesso soggetto. Mancando documenti d’archivio, si deve pensare che queste gemme fossero incise per coloro che effettuavano il Gran Tour intorno agli anni 1800-1830.
This article deals with the gem engraver (Maria) Teresa Talani, acting in the last decade of the 18th - first quarter of the 19th centuries. In her time she was appreciated and famous, but now is little known. The original carvings by Talani that still survive and are published are quite few; here a catalogue of her cameos and intaglios is proposed. Moreover, in the present study are published some very interesting documents, that give fundamental information for a clearer understanding of Talani’s figure and to resolve complicated matters concerning such artist. Teresa Talani was born not in Rome, as many scholars assert, but in Bergamo, perhaps daughter of Giovanni Moro / Moor, gem engraver living in Venice. Teresa Talani was wife of Vincenzo Talani, an art dealer with several links to Neapolitan court; they stayed in Naples for a long time. In the age of Napoleon the artist moved to Milan, working for powerful and prestigious patrons, such as the Napoleonic court and the Count Giovanni Battista Sommariva.
Antonio Berini (Rome 1770-Milan 1861), famous gem-engraver, before 1804 decided to move from Rome to Milan, the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, where he lived, estemeed and praised; he was employed by the court and prestigious art patrons to engrave intaglios and cameos.A big collection of 114 plaster casts of intaglios and cameos made by Berini, without explanations, is now in the Civici Musei of Storia and Arte in Trieste, part of the bequest of Filippo Zamboni, cosmopolitan man of letters. These casts are a Berini’s very interesting “instrument of work”: in fact there are multiple casts and casts of works of other gem-engravers. Zamboni knew Berini very well; he writes that the artist was able to imitate ancient intaglios and cameos so perfectly that his engravings were mistakenly thought ancient. The subjects analysed in this article are common and often engraved by the artists of the second half of Eighteenth Century - first half of Nineteenth Century: the famous intaglio known as the Strozzi Medusa (reproduced by almost all engravers), Atena/Minerva/Roma’s head, Esculapio’s bust, Paride’s bust, gems depicting Famous Men, as Mecenate, Dante, Petrarca, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Shakespeare, Alessandro Tassoni.
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