Court Commissions from the Valadier Workshop

Abstract

T recent detailed study of a large group of drawings from the workshop directed by the Valadier family of goldsmiths and founderers in eighteenth century Rome has increased· awareness of the diversity of commissions they received from European dynasties and the Papal court. Two exhibi~onsheld in 1991, one in London 1 and the other in Florence2, centred on an album of presentation designs that included works relating to the famous Borghese table service. In 1994 an exhibition at the Musee du Louvre of Valadier works from the museum's own collection3 was mainly a display of mounted hardstones, cameos and gems, both antique and modem,· confiscated by the French forces from occupied Ro.me in 1798, and never returned. Many of the pieces came from the collection of Pope Pius VI (1775-99), one of the most important patrons of the workshop. The recent exhibition in Rome4 included some additional discoveries. The majority of the drawings date from the eighteenth century. A small group is associated with the founder Andrea Valadier, who was born in Aramon in 1694 in Languedoc, settled in Rome after an apprenticeship to a goldsmith in Avignon, and died there in 1759. He left his house and workshop in piazza San Luigi dei Francesi to his two sons Luigi (1726-85) and Giovanni (1732-1805), but the brothers separated in 1762 and the following year Luigi signed a rent agreement for No. 89 via del Babuino. More numerous are the ·drawings identified with Luigi Valadier and his son Giuseppe (1762-1839), who directed the workshop after his father drowned in the Tiber, until he sold it to another family of goldsmiths, headed by Giuseppe Spagna in 1827. An early collaboration between Andrea Valadier and his son Luigi was a commission from King Joao V of Portugal (1689-1750) for gates for the Baptistry of the Patriarchal Church in Lisbon, to enclose a font designed by Luigi Vanvitelli. The gates, exhibited in Rome in 1747 before being sent to Portugal, were destroyed in the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755, with much of the city. The commission has been the subject of many articles in recent years and is likely to be further explored since the discovery of the Weale album, which includes drawings of the gates and other ecclesiastical works ordered by the Portugese king from Rome. 5