Originally published in Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry, edited by Susan Weber Soros and Stefanie Walker. Published for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. 201–226.
From the exhibition: The Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry.
With the opening of the Regolini-Galassi tomb in 1836 at Cerveteri (the
ancient Caere), the Castellani firm took a decided turn toward the study of ancient
gold jewelry. Fortunato Pio and Alessandro Castellani were invited by the papal
authorities to inspect the stunningly ornate gold artifacts recovered from the
tomb. Their firsthand acquaintance with the marvelous jewelry would
be recalled again and again by Alessandro in his lectures and publications:
The discovery of the celebrated tomb known as that of
Regulini Galassi, at Cervetri [sic], was
an event of the highest importance in regard to our enterprise. On the Papal
Government expressing a wish to become possessed of the objects in gold found
in this tomb, my father and I were called upon to examine them with the utmost
care. We had thus an opportunity of studying the particular character of
Etruscan jewelry, and, holding thereby in our hands the thread which was to
guide us through our researches, we set earnestly to work.
Other discoveries were
influential as well, at the site of Cerveteri by the Marchese Campana, at
Toscanella by Secondiano Campanari, and at Vulci where in 1828 an Etruscan
necropolis was uncovered on the estate of Lucien Bonaparte, the prince of
Canino. Much of the jewelry recovered was made available to the Castellani
firm for study, facilitating their research into ancient goldworking techniques.
Pivotal to the new Castellani
initiative was the well-known antiquarian Michelangelo Caetani, duke of
Sermoneta: “so well known as possessing the purest taste and the feelings
of a true artist, he revived at Rome the art of the jeweler by taking as models
the most perfect examples that antiquity could furnish.” Caetani encouraged
the Castellani family to concentrate their production on ancient-style jewelry
and provided them with appropriate designs and ideas.
A second
important figure was Giovanni Pietro Campana, family friend and director of the
Sacro Monte di Pietà, whose famous collection of ancient jewelry was housed in
his museum in Rome. The marchese di Campana had enriched his
collection with finds from his own archaeological activities, as well as by
purchases of the finest pieces unearthed by others. Unfortunately
for Campana, his outsized passion for ancient jewelry led him to appropriate
funds illegally to support his habit, and he was arrested and imprisoned in
1859. His collection was confiscated for sale, most of it bought by Napoleon
III in 1860-61.The Castellani family worked to save the collection but to no
avail. However, the firm did retain the Campana jewelry for a period prior to
the sale—to repair, study, and make casts of the pieces.
I had in my possession, for the space of six months, all the jewels of
that precious collection; and this was for the purpose of repairing injuries
received by them, from the neglect and want of care of those with whom they had
been placed in the Sacro Monte di Pietà….I availed myself of the opportunity
to restudy the ancient Art of jewelry in all its parts; to note the smallest
difference in style, of time and of nation, and to see the use and the history
of the ornaments thus produced, acquiring in this manner fresh knowledge, and
improving that which I had treasured up, in the exercise of the art, for the
space of nearly twenty years.
“The ancient
Art of jewelry”
Meanwhile,
the Castellani family had begun to build its own impressive collection, which
afforded further opportunity to investigate the early techniques. It became
increasingly clear that the ancient goldsmiths were superior to those of the nineteenth
century.
It appears that the Greeks and Etruscans had, so to speak,
acquired a complete knowledge of all those practical arts in their highest
degree of perfection, by the aid of which the most ancient people of the East
wrought the precious metals. Once initiated into the modes of treating the raw
material, and of subjecting it to all the caprices of their imagination, the artists
of Etruria and of Greece had but to apply these processes to elegance and to
the vast resources of the art, such as their own genius conceived.
The ancient techniques so
admired by the Castellani firm included repoussé, filigree, and
“granulation,” which they mastered to a high degree and then used for
their own copies and adaptations. The ancient art of granulation, particularly
the fine “powder” granulation of the Etruscans, was especially
difficult to reproduce and eluded the grasp of the Castellani jewelers for
decades.
Notwithstanding the
achievements of the machine age, the ancient goldwork was more refined than
anything that could be manufactured in the nineteenth century:
Its very imperfections and omissions, purposely made, give to the workmanship
that artistic character altogether wanting in the greater number of modern
works, which, owing to a monotonous uniformity produced by punching and
casting, have an appearance of triviality depriving them of all individual
character—that charm which so constantly strikes us in the productions of the
ancients.
In the view of Alessandro
Castellani, these imperfections only made the ancient work more perfect. Modern
jewelers’ work was less artistic and more mechanical, with the various
activities, such as casting, engraving, enameling, gem polishing, and the
setting of stones, divided among various specialist workmen, the whole process
overseen “by a dealer whose aim is to make a marketable article and dazzle
vulgar eyes, not to produce a real work of art.”
This complaint was echoed by
contemporary aesthetes such as William Burges, who railed against the bad
jewelry of his day, made possible by “the great system of our age,”
the division of labor—poorly trained and uneducated designers, production
jewelers working from stock designs of questionable taste, and tradesmen to
display and sell the items. The revival of ancient jewelry styles and
techniques was, in Burges’s opinion, “a step in the right direction.”
And “even should the fashion go out, as all fashions do, still it will
have introduced more delicacy into the manipulation, and the succeeding style
will hardly be so bad as the one of which we have just got rid.” But the
fashion would be in for a very long time and the fashion was “Italian
archaeological jewelry.”
“A perfect imitation
of the ancient work”
Those who
were lucky enough could wear real ancient jewelry, the princess of Canino for
one, who presumably had her pick of the antiquities found on her husband’s
estate at Vulci. She was known throughout Europe for her fabulous Etruscan
“parure,” that was “the envy of society and excelled the chefs d’oeuvres
of Paris or Vienna.” Such reports only increased the demand for the
archaeological-style jewelry that was made and sold by the Castellani firm. So
prestigious was the firm that people traveled long distances to see the
Castellani shop in Rome. Nathaniel Hawthorne visited the shop at 88 Via Poli in
1858, and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1860. The
pilgrimage was satirized in Punch in
1859 with a letter from a “Young Lady” who was planning
her visit to Rome:
…there is a great deal to see in Rome that everybody must see, but then you know, dear, we read about all those things
when we were at school, and we can buy plenty of photographs of the Coliseum,
the Forum, and the Temples, &c., to show our friends in England where we
have been, so that we need not waste much time upon them. My great object in Rome is to go, the very first thing, to
that dear, delightful, interesting shop, CASTELLANI’S, in the Via Poli,
where…you have nothing to do but to lay down scudi enough, in order to be made
perfectly classical in appearance and style.
The “perfectly
classical” look was achieved through perfectly classical jewelry, made in
studious imitation of ancient prototypes, and so well researched and finely
crafted that one was hard pressed to distinguish between the copies and the
ancient works. Experts might be able to tell the difference, but in the popular
imagination, Castellani jewelry was as good as the real thing. Individual
pieces were associated with particular styles and periods, with ancient peoples
from particular areas, and even with specific archaeological sites.
The new jewelry which has appeared in Rome is a perfect imitation of the
ancient work in gold and precious stones, disposed and arranged according to
the different ages of ancient Art, so that from the style of each article, the
period and people to which it belonged can be easily known, and we can at once
name the ancient people who best cultivated the art of goldwork.
In fact, none of the
Castellani creations were exact replicas, although admirers were convinced that
they could learn about ancient jewelry based on the productions of the
firm. To this end, one could also view the Castellani collection of ancient
jewelry exhibited at the shop, although these pieces had been
“repaired” in many instances by the shop’s jewelers. Many of these “repaired”
pieces were eventually acquired by the British Museum (notably in 1872 and
1884). Or one might visit the museums of Italy, such as the Campana Museum,
where more ancient jewelry was on display. However, these pieces too might be
repaired and subsequently sold—1,146 pieces from the Campana collection went to
France (1861) and subsequently entered the Louvre (1863). As a result,
several major European collections of ancient jewelry now contain numerous
pieces that were repaired or reworked, many by the Castellani firm.
These items figured
prominently in the history of ancient jewelry formulated in the nineteenth
century—the basis for much of our knowledge of the field today. Only recently
have scientists and archaeologists begun to identify the nineteenth-century
additions to ancient pieces, many of which passed through the Castellani shop.
Further compounding the problem, reworked ancient pieces were copied and
disseminated by Castellani and other firms specializing in archaeological
jewelry. Finally, proveniences were assigned to pieces that were purchased on
the art market, and these proveniences were disseminated along with the styles
and types of jewelry “said to be from” particular sites. All
these problems have their origins in the antiquarian approach to early
archaeological excavation.
Antiquarian Archaeology
The
eighteenth-century excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum were, to a great
extent, plundering operations to find and remove antiquities for the Bourbon
court. There were some objections to this approach, most
famously those of archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who complained that
Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre, the director of excavations, was nothing more
than a “land surveyor” who was “as familiar with antiquities as
the moon is with crabs.” An exception to Alcubierre’s haphazard
and damaging methods was found in the work of his assistant Karl Weber, who
advocated systematic techniques such as following the lines of streets and
entering the buildings through doors, as well as cataloguing artifacts
according to their find spots. For the most part, however, no
concept of archaeological methodology yet existed.
By the first
half of the nineteenth century, the situation had improved somewhat, although
the illusion of scientific excavation techniques often exceeded the reality.
George Dennis, in The Cities and
Cemeteries of Etruria (1848), proposed that the extensive
“rifling” of Etruscan tombs had taken place in a much earlier period,
perhaps toward the end of the Roman Empire or “by the barbarian hordes who
overran Italy in the early part of our era.” He claimed that in the Middle
Ages there was an interest in buried treasure, but “it does not appear
that any systematic researches were carried forward, as…in our own day.”
Dennis’s brief account of the recent “excavations” at Vulci,
however, paints a more disturbing picture of current practices:
In the early part of 1828 some oxen were ploughing the land near the
castle, when the ground suddenly gave way beneath them, and disclosed an Etruscan
tomb with two broken vases. This led to further research, which was at first
carried on unknown to the Prince of Canino, but at the close of the year he
took the excavations into his own hands, and in the course of four months he
brought to light more than two thousand objects of Etruscan antiquity, and all
from a plot of ground of three or four acres. Other excavators soon came into
the field; everyone who had land in the neighbourhood tilled it for this novel
harvest, and all with abundant success; the Feoli, Candelori, Campanari, Fossati,—all
enriched themselves and the Museums of Europe with treasures from this
sepulchral mine. Since that time the Prince or his widow has annually excavated
on this site, and never in vain.
The “research”
carried out after the first tomb was discovered clearly involved digging up
more of the site, and this seems to have gone on unsupervised for almost a year
before the prince took over. Then, for his part, he speedily turned up two
thousand items in a four-month period. Soon others joined in with the same
gusto, with the result that all the “excavators” were
“enriched,” but the objects had lost their archaeological context
forever, making the provenience of “Vulci” suspect for all the early
finds “said to come from” the area. Many of these objects were sold
to museums and collectors.
Campana was one of the top buyers. An avid collector, he was a member of
the Accademia Ercolanese and numerous other antiquarian societies, well placed
within the antiquities trade, and an “excavator” at Cerveteri and at
Veii, where he “discovered” the famous painted “Campana
Tomb” in 1842-43, which is now recognized as a fabrication.
This was unknown to Dennis in 1848, when he extolled Campana’s virtues as a
scientist. Campana was also admired by his contemporaries for
his concern over the archaeological context of the objects in his collection,
although in fact most of these had no secure provenience. He attempted to
assemble coherent groups of objects, but some of these groups were constructed
from pieces that were not actually found together. He catalogued
his antiquities for publication in the Cataloghi
Campana, although he merely listed the objects with no indication of their
find spots. It is in this atmosphere that the Castellani family
operated.
Friends of
Campana, the erudite Castellani were not only dealers but antiquarians as well.
Scholars of antiquity, they read the works of Pliny and others in their search
for information on ancient technology. Alessandro lectured
widely on the firm’s research on ancient jewelry techniques to groups such as
the Institute of France (1860) and the Archaeological Institute in London
(1861). Both Alessandro and Augusto published numerous books and
articles on ancient history and the history of early jewelry. There
was even a “Castellani Tomb,” discovered at Palestrina (Praeneste) in
1861; the tomb was not excavated by the Castellani, but Fortunato Pio acquired
the finds. The tomb was opened illegally, however, and the grave
goods were subject to judicial inquiry. The objects were
eventually divided among the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Alessandro (who sold
his items to the British Museum), and Augusto (who retained a small collection,
now in the Villa Giulia).
Alessandro
frequented excavations, purchasing antiquities at various sites, and he
personally took part in excavations at Santa Maria di Capua (Capua) and hoped
to excavate near Naples during his exile there. In order to
finance the Naples excavations, he attempted to sell one of the firm’s most
valuable pieces, a reproduction of a gold diadem “found at Cumae”, as
indicated in a letter of 1864 to Austen Henry Layard. The reward
for undertaking such a project, with any luck, would be many more antiquities
to add to the Castellani collection.
A more
scientific project was initiated by Alessandro in 1870—the excavation of the
Tiber riverbed, a rescue effort before the dredging of the river.
The prospect of the outcome excited the public:
What mines of wealth may not be
hidden there—wealth of material and of thought! A committee has been formed, at
the head of which is Sigr. Castellani, which hopes to have the direction of this
work….When one thinks of what may be hidden in the bed of that river….the most precious things thrown in hot haste from the bridges and walls, lest
the invader might be enriched thereby; the images of the gods and the caskets of
inestimable antique value;…the most torpid imagination must kindle with the thought
of what a few years will add to the archaeological and artistic interest of the
Eternal City.
But this was more than a
treasure hunt. The finds were recorded, plans were drawn of architectural
remains, and photographs and drawings were made of the Roman wall paintings
recovered. In his report on the excavations, Alessandro expressed a new
approach to archaeological methodology:
… the observations made on the
progressive elevation of the ground were sufficient to establish in my mind the
firm belief that, by a careful and systematic exploration of the bed of the
Tiber, we should find, layer upon layer, as in turning over the leaves of a
book, a connected series of historical and artistic documents of inestimable
value.
This interest in stratigraphy
places Alessandro Castellani among the most advanced archaeologists of his day,
along with Karl Weber at Herculaneum; A. H. Layard, excavator of the Assyrian
capital of Nimrud; and Heinrich Schliemann, discoverer of the Bronze Age cities
of Troy and Mycenae. In keeping with the times, however, even such
progressive figures committed improprieties and appropriated antiquities:
Schliemann packed up “Priam’s Treasure” and smuggled it out of Turkey in
1873, and Layard gave Assyrian sculptures to his cousin Lady Charlotte Guest
for her country house in England. In 1869, when Layard married his cousin’s
daughter, Enid Guest, he presented her with a parure of archaeological jewelry
made up of authentic Mesopotamian cylinder and stamp seals, including a
bracelet set with “Esarhaddon’s signet” which Layard had found at
Nimrud.
Ancient Jewelry and Castellani Adaptations
Any study of Castellani
adaptations must take into account the world of the antiquarian archaeologist.
Puzzling practices and questions of intent are better understood within
this context. A good way to begin such a study is with the excavated objects
known to the Castellani. The term excavated
is used here for objects that were systematically removed from known sites,
in authorized ventures, and kept in their original groups; in the best of
cases, the objects were removed with care, and the circumstances of their
excavation were recorded.
The most fabulous excavated
Etruscan jewels came from three tombs dating to the seventh century B.C.—the
Barberini tomb (1855) and the Bernardini tomb (1876), both discovered at
Palestrina, and the Regolini-Galassi tomb (1836) at Cerveteri, a seminal
influence. None of these finds was adequately recorded, although
they had a relatively secure context and were clearly authentic.
They were thus of interest to the Castellani firm, but only, it seems, in terms
of technical research; despite their significance, they were apparently not
used as prototypes for Castellani productions. The information the Castellani
gathered from these pieces was used for their archaeological jewelry.
Another important group of excavated jewels did serve as models for
Castellani adaptations, although this jewelry was available to the workshop
only through published engravings. This was the spectacular
Greek gold from the area of the “Cimmerian Bosphorus,” the strait
leading from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. The Black
Sea region was colonized by the Greeks early in the first millennium B.C., and
their influence was felt in the vicinity for centuries afterward. The jewelry
in question was recovered in excavations carried out at the sites of Kul Oba and the Great Bliznitza, with the
finds going to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Some of
this jewelry was apparently made by Greeks for Scythian clients.
The tomb at Kul Oba, discovered
by accident in 1830 and subsequently excavated, contained the burial of a man
(found in a wood sarcophagus), a woman (laid out on a nearby couch), and a
second man, identified as a servant. The tomb’s occupants were
buried with their jewelry, metal vessels, and weapons; horse bones were found
in a pit in the floor. The gold jewelry, dating to ca. 400-350 B.C., included
a torque with terminals of Scythian horsemen, a bracelet with a twisted hoop
terminating in the foreparts of winged sphinxes, a diadem worked in repoussé
with enamel rosettes, gold appliqué plaques, three ornate gold earrings (a pair
and a single earring), and a pair of elaborate disk pendants. The diadem,
earrings, and disk pendants were all found with the female burial.
The Kul Oba pendants feature
large disks depicting the head of the Athena Parthenos, the famous colossal
chryselephantine statue made by Pheidias for the Parthenon in Athens. Each disk
is bordered with a frieze of enameled ivy leaves, and from the disk hangs a
network of loop-in-loop chains with tiny gold “amphora-shaped”
pendants and rosettes. The pendants were found near the middle of the woman’s body,
so they were presumably attached to her dress. The pair of earrings also
features disks, decorated with filigree, granulation, and enamel, with
three-dimensional flowers and rosettes. Suspended from each disk are two fancy
rosettes, and hanging from the rosettes is a crescent-shaped pendant crowned
with a floral acroterion at the center; rosettes run along the bottom of the
crescent, and from these are suspended chains, more rosettes, bosses, and
amphora- and seed-shaped pendants. The surface decoration is executed in
filigree (plain, beaded, rope, and spiral-beaded wire), enamel, and
granulation.
The Castellani firm made copies of the Kul Oba earrings, an example of
which is now in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian
Institution, New York. The enamel of the ancient pieces was not apparent in the
engravings and was omitted in the modern versions; the earrings were made as
brooches so that they could be worn. The modern works are
essentially copies of the ancient ones, although they are easily
distinguishable from their prototypes. Despite Alessandro Castellani’s
appreciation for the irregularities and imperfections of ancient jewelry, when
it came to the work of his own firm, he—or someone in the firm—decided to
regularize all the forms, even out the applied decoration, and perfect the
overall symmetry for this characteristically archaeological-style work.
The Great Bliznitza mound,
excavated between 1864 and 1885, covered the burials of at least five people,
all dating to about 330-300 B.C. The most important, the
“Tomb of the Priestess of Demeter,” was essentially intact
when it was opened in 1864. The woman was buried with a bronze mirror and other
cosmetic items, an Attic red-figured pelike, small leather shoes, four sets of
horse trappings, and a large selection of sumptuous gold jewelry. The group
included a pair of bracelets with twisted hoops and leaping lion terminals, a
headdress decorated with barbarians fighting griffins, several rings, and two
strap necklaces made of delicate woven gold chains with hanging pendants, as
well as a pair of disk pendants and a pair of earrings that resemble those from
Kul Oba.
The large disks of pendants
feature depictions of Thetis or one of her sisters riding a hippocamp and
carrying the armor of Achilles—on one pendant she carries a breastplate and on
the other a greave. Running around the scene is a lotus-frieze border in
spiral-beaded wire, with rosettes and bosses disposed along the lower edge of
the disk. Hanging from the rosettes is a network of loop-in-loop
chains with amphora- and seed-type pendants of various sizes, more rosettes,
and tiny heart-shaped ivy leaves attached to the upper row of seed pendants.
The larger of the two strap necklaces from the tomb was made to match the disk
pendants, with rosettes and bosses running along the bottom of the strap and a
festoon of loop-in-loop chains featuring an exquisite display of amphora and
seed pendants. The strap is made from interwoven loop-in-loop chains; the terminals
at the ends of the strap are lion heads with elaborate filigree collars.
Castellani copies of the Great
Bliznitza necklace and pendants were shown at the 1876 and 1878 international
exhibitions and were among Alessandro’s effects sold in 1884 to the South
Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
Like the Castellani copies of the earrings from Kul Oba, the Great Bliznitza copies
are skillful replicas. In this case, the correspondence seems even closer,
particularly with respect to the pendant chains and beads (although here, too,
the enamel is missing). In some ways, the Castellani versions of the south
Russian Greek gold are among the best archaeological jewelry that the firm
produced: beautifully executed copies of authentic, unrestored ancient jewelry
without modern additions or revisions—as Augusto Castellani had claimed,
“a perfect imitation of the ancient work.”
Excavated vs. Unexcavated
A second category of prototypes
is unexcavated (that is, looted) jewelry, which has lost its original
archaeological context and has only a dealer’s provenance. In
some cases, the alleged context is surely correct, but there is almost never a
way to verify its accuracy. The objects plundered from Vulci in the haphazard
digging and “said to come from Vulci” are examples of such works, as
are pieces looted from unknown sites. In keeping with the times, many of the
ancient jewels that the Castellani firm bought and sold fall into this
category. These objects are often problematic in terms of authenticity or the
possibility of modern repair or reworking. One of the most spectacular pieces
in this second group is the Greek gold strap necklace “said to be from
Melos”. The necklace is now in the British Museum, purchased
in 1872 from Alessandro Castellani.
The “Melos” necklace (ca.
330-300 B.C.) is a variation on the necklace from the Great Bliznitza, with
amphora- and seed-shaped pendants hanging from chains suspended from a gold
strap. The terminals at the ends of the strap are decorated with filigree palmettes.
Rosettes and ivy leaves run along the bottom of the strap; beads and chains
hang from these; from the chains dangle bosses, rosettes, and the seed and
amphora pendants. Blue and green enamel enhances the decorative elements. A
Castellani copy of this necklace in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum is an almost exact
replica of the original, although the chains that hold the pendants are longer.
As with the copies of the Greek gold jewelry from south Russia, the modern work
is more regular; the terminals, in particular, are an interesting
nineteenth century adaptation. But on the whole, the Castellani necklace is a
wonderfully accurate piece of archaeological jewelry. The original
“Melos” necklace was repaired, apparently under the direction of
Alessandro Castellani, before it was sold to the British Museum.
Recent examination has shown that several missing elements were replaced and
the terminals reattached. In the nineteenth century, museums and
collectors liked their objects restored and normally opted for repair, which
had been standard practice for centuries.
A similar gold necklace was
sold to the British Museum by Alessandro in 1872 along with the
“Melos” necklace. This second necklace, “said to have come from
Capua,” has been reexamined in detail, and although the necklace appears
to be complete, the study showed that only half the necklace is actually
ancient. The other half—strap, chains, pendants and all—is a
high-quality reconstruction. This was a surprise to the museum, which had
assumed all along that it had bought an ancient necklace. Although any number
of nineteenth-century goldsmiths could have restored the pieces, the fine
workmanship and the identity of the seller suggest that it was the Castellani
shop. The possibility remains, however, that Alessandro acquired
the necklace in its restored form and then sold to the British Museum. Why was
only half the “Capua” necklace preserved? Either it was damaged when
it was found or, more likely, the looters cut it and divided it between them, a
common practice then as now.
The Case of the Campana Collection
As one travels farther along
this path, one meets up again with Marchese Campana, whose collection was studied
by the Castellani jewelers before it left for France. As was typical for the period,
few of Campana’s antiquities had a documented provenience, excepting, of course,
the ones he had dug up himself. Campana had many of his objects
restored, some heavily, by a group of restorers that included Pietro and Enrico
Pennelli and Filippo Gnaccarini, as well as the Castellani jewelers; some of
the objects he acquired had already been restored. These objects
were even further removed from their original contexts. In one case, Campana
claimed that his statue of “Marius” was discovered in Otriculum, but in
1882 the head of the statue was shown to be modern, with a suspicious
inscription on the base, and the statue is now considered a fake.
Such were the hazards of nineteenth-century collecting.
One item that was apparently
left in its original condition was the famous Campana gold diadem, the model
for the Castellani diadem that Alessandro tried to sell to finance an
excavation in Naples. Campana apparently thought that the diadem
was from a tomb “near Palo in Etruria,” although Alessandro said it
was “found at Cumae” near Naples.
Far more problematic are the
three gold hinged “Etruscan bracelets”, one “said to come
from” Tarquinia, which are now recognized as pastiches. The
individual panels of the “bracelets” are actually made from authentic
Etruscan earrings of the “a
bauletto” type, using the curved panels, somewhat flattened out, and
hinged together with clasps at the ends. Two of the ”
bracelets” are composed of nine panels, and the third of thirteen, which
made it much too long for a bracelet. Just who accomplished these imaginative
inventions is a matter of speculation, but the Castellani firm has often been
suspected. However, it seems likely that the “bracelets” were already
constructed before the Campana jewelry was examined by the Castellani firm in
1860. In particular, the modern additions to the “ancient” bracelets
are cruder than one would expect of Castellani work. It is
possible that Campana had them made himself or even bought them already
reconstructed as bracelets. Whatever the role of the Castellani, and whether or
not they knew the truth about the Campana “bracelets,” they produced
their own bracelets based on the Campana pieces. They did not
reproduce the originals exactly, but designed beautiful adaptations inspired by
the “ancient” models. The new bracelets consisted of seven square,
flat panels, joined by large hinges, with semicircular plaques at the ends. Not
only Castellani, but also Giacinto Melillo of Naples made such bracelets, and
the Melillo design was copied by other jewelers. Thus an “ancient”
bracelet type was invented and perpetuated through the archaeological-style
bracelets that purported to reproduce it. In this case, an ancient form did not
influence a modern one but vice versa.
An important group of
“Etruscan” scarab necklaces poses a somewhat different problem. The
group includes an “ancient” necklace from the Campana collection
acquired by the Louvre, an “ancient” necklace sold to the British
Museum by Alessandro Castellani in 1872, and a third scarab necklace (the
“Potocki” necklace) in a private collection. In addition, the
Castellani firm made adaptations of the scarab necklace type. The famous
Campana scarab necklace in the Louvre was made of twenty-three authentic
Etruscan carnelian scarabs set in gold mounts and strung in alternation with
twenty-four ancient Etruscan gold beads; the clasp features two gold dolphins.
A recent collaborative study based at the Berlin Museum has shown that only
three of the gold mounts are ancient, so the necklace was clearly made up from
fragments. Furthermore, there is no wear on the gold beads near
the suspension loops of the scarabs, so if this is an accurate reconstruction
of an ancient necklace recovered in fragmentary condition, it was never worn as
such. It is probably not a reconstruction of an original ancient necklace,
however, because of the varying dates and types of the ancient pieces used: the
gold beads all date to the sixth century B.C.; the scarabs include fifteen in
the Etruscan “a globolo” style
(late fourth to third century B.C.), two in the Etruscan “free style”
(second half of the fourth century B.C.), five Greco-Phoenician scarabs (about
500 B.C. or slightly later), and one Greek (fifth century B.C.); the clasp is
South Italian (“Tarentine”) and dates to the second century B.C.
The three ancient mounts of the
Campana necklace are all on the Greco-Phoenician scarabs and feature thick gold
bands, decorated with spirals and bosses, which run around the base of the
scarabs; prongs extend up from the top of the bands to secure the scarabs in
the mounts. The nineteenth-century gold mounts are of the same type, with
varying patterns decorating the bands. The newer mounts were presumably made
for loose scarabs, a large number of which were found at Chiusi and Vulci.
According to Dennis, at Vulci they came from tombs, but at Chiusi many scarabs
were found in the earth of a certain slope beneath the city called “The
Jeweler’s Field,” presumably turned up by the plough or washed to the
surface by the rain. It has been assumed that the Castellani
firm restored this necklace and made the modern mounts. However,
the recent technical study has found the workmanship on the newer mounts to be
comparatively crude, said to be due to the early date at which the necklace was
put together (1859 or earlier). In fact, this cruder work may
relate to the same phenomenon found on the Campana “bracelets” and
suggests that the Castellani workshop was not involved in the fabrication of the
Campana scarab necklace.
The scarab necklace in the British
Museum was also found to be a pastiche, with twenty-one authentic Etruscan
scarabs in the “a globolo” style
(fourth to third century B.C.), twenty-two ancient Etruscan gold beads (sixth
to fifth century B.C.), and a clasp with ancient “Achelous” masks and
nineteenth-century additions. This necklace was sold to the museum in 1872 by
Alessandro Castellani and is said to have been owned first by Lucien Bonaparte.
None of the gold scarab mounts is ancient, however, so this was clearly never
an ancient necklace. The type of mount is different from those on the Campana
necklace, with beaded wire running around the base and four palmettes rising
from the wire to secure the scarab; the palmettes are joined to one another in
a delicate cage of twisted wire serving to hold the scarabs in place. This type
of mount was derived from a third scarab necklace, the Potocki necklace, which
was also examined for the Berlin Museum study.
Like the other two scarab
necklaces, the Potocki necklace is a nineteenth-century pastiche, although the
design is somewhat different. The necklace is made from eleven
ancient Etruscan scarabs (“a
globolo” style) alternating with bead groups, consisting of a
spherical gold bead and beaded gold spacer to either side of a long, faceted
cordierite bead; the clasp features ancient gold antelope heads. One of the
scarab mounts is ancient, and this was clearly the prototype for the
nineteenth-century mounts on the Potocki necklace, as well as those on the
British Museum necklace. The Berlin Museum study showed that the
craftsmanship of the nineteenth-century additions to these two necklaces is
superior to that of the Campana necklace. This suggests the possibility
that the Castellani firm was involved in the reconstruction of the British
Museum and Potocki necklaces—but that the Campana necklace was made up before
it reached the Castellani studio.
As with the Campana
“bracelets,” the Campana scarab necklace served as a prototype for archaeological-style
jewels made by the Castellani firm. The Castellani scarab necklaces
in the Villa Giulia and Victoria and Albert Museum both incorporate ancient
scarabs in an otherwise totally modern necklace. The case of the scarab
necklaces reveals the varying degrees of pastiche that were created and the way
they were regarded by the firm—or at least by Alessandro Castellani, who
apparently deemed it acceptable to pass off the British Museum necklace as
ancient, since it was made up of ancient scarabs, beads, and clasps. For
the modern Castellani necklaces, the goldwork was all modern, but the scarabs
were ancient—a nice bonus for anyone purchasing such a piece. Other types of
scarab jewelry, including elaborate bracelets, were made by the Castellani
firm, and variations on the scarab necklaces were made with gems, coins, or
other kinds of pendants. These, in turn, were copied and adapted
by Melillo and other archaeological jewelers. As with the
Campana “bracelets,” a type of “ancient” necklace that seems never to have existed
was invented and promoted through a long series of nineteenth-century
imitations.
The Question of Forgery
Any inquiry into the ethics of
the Castellani must take into account the practices of the times in which they
lived and worked. Leaving aside the reworking of the Campana
“bracelets” and scarab necklace, which cannot be attributed to the
Castellani studio, several other jewels must be considered. These include the
items sold by Alessandro Castellani in 1872 to the British Museum: the
“Melos” necklace, an ancient necklace that had been repaired; the
“Capua” necklace, half an ancient necklace that had been completed;
and the scarab necklace, made up primarily of ancient pieces. Such restorations were
not exceptional in an age where the repair and reconstitution of antiquities
were common and accepted. In fact, the practice had an ancient pedigree, going
back most famously to Gaius Verres, the notorious Roman proconsul and plunderer
of Sicily, who established a workshop where he combined pieces stripped from
various gold vessels he had looted to make entirely new works of art.
The repair and reworking of antiquities continued, reaching a high point in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when an ancient statue of a sleeping
hermaphrodite could acquire a plush mattress, and a fragmentary copy of Myron’s
diskobolos could be restored as a dying gladiator. In this
context, it seems quite plausible that Alessandro considered the items he sold
to the British Museum to be “antiquities.”
Somewhat different is a
necklace acquired by the South Kensington Museum in the 1884 sale of
Alessandro’s effects after his death. The medallion of the pendant has now been
identified as a sixteenth-century Tudor hat badge, adorned with Greek-style
heads and a putto and strung on a Roman necklace. This is most
certainly a pastiche, but whether Alessandro recognized it as such is unknown,
and in any case, he did not sell it himself as an antiquity.
A more convincing deception is
the group of Achelous heads, which were based on an original Greek Achelous in
the Campana collection, now in the Louvre. The Berlin Museum
acquired an Achelous pendant as part of an “ancient” necklace in
1878, from the Castellani family collection and with the provenance, “from
Praeneste-Palestrina.” The central Achelous head is strung with
six palmette pendants on a necklace of gold cylindrical beads. Recent tests
have revealed that the Berlin Achelous pendant is a nineteenth-century copy of
the Campana Achelous, though not exact, and the rest of the necklace is
ancient. The technical study suggests that the Berlin Achelous is consistent
with the work of the Castellani workshop.
The British
Museum also bought an Achelous pendant on a gold chain, acquired in the 1884 sale
of Alessandro’s effects. The British Museum pendant is
technically similar to the Berlin Achelous, and may be a nineteenth-century
copy (presumably a copy of the Berlin head rather than the Campana Achelous);
the chain of the British Museum necklace is ancient. Although it is not certain
that the Castellani workshop made the Berlin and British Museum Achelous
pendants, it seems possible. If so, the shop had produced
outright forgeries, one of which was sold as an antiquity. The
Castellani firm made their own archaeological-style versions of the Campana
Achelous, which are immediately recognizable as nineteenth-century work.
In one famous
instance, Alessandro Castellani did sell an actual forgery. The
purchaser was the British Museum (1873), and the object was an alleged Etruscan
terracotta sarcophagus with a man and woman reclining on its lid. In
fact, the sarcophagus was made by Pietro and Enrico Pennelli, broken up, and
acquired by the museum in pieces. Castellani had himself bought the sarcophagus
from Pietro Pennelli, who said he had excavated it at Cerveteri. Some
scholars have suggested that Alessandro knowingly sold the museum a forgery
while others have believed him an innocent victim. Whether or
not he intended to deceive the museum, it is clear that Alessandro was an
active participant in the art trade, as was his colleague Giovanni Pietro
Campana. The forgers of the “Etruscan” sarcophagus, the Pennelli
brothers, were restorers who worked for Campana, and Enrico Pennelli had
followed the Campana collection to Paris to look after the objects.
There were
many forgers of antiquities active in Chiusi, Rome, and Naples, and it was inevitable
that the antiquarian archaeologists would be taken in. According
to Augusto Castellani, the beginnings of Italian archaeological jewelry are
tied to the beginnings of the forgery trade in ancient jewels. He mentions the
goldsmith Sarno, who had a reputable business in Naples making exact reproductions
of ancient jewelry in the early nineteenth century, and whose practice
gradually ended:
The artists who had been members of [Sarno’s studio] then set themselves
to restore works of ancient Art, and even applied their talents to falsify
them. In this last blamable industry they succeeded so wonderfully, that Naples
became famous for imitations, so cleverly done by means of coloured earths,
acids, and salts, as to render it difficult and almost impossible to know
whether an article was really antique or not, except by persons who had long
experience in the arts, and were well practised in archaeology.
Clearly, the Castellani
family was aware of the proliferation of forgeries and did not want to be
associated with them. Along with the forgery of objects came the forgery of
provenience—less obvious but just as problematic. Proveniences could be
invented for forgeries, and also for authentic antiquities.
Forgery of Provenience
“Forged”
or made-up proveniences plagued the antiquities market, with unexcavated
objects “said to be from” Vulci, Chiusi, Palestrina, Cerveteri,
Melos, Capua, Palo, Cumae, Tarquinia, and other sites. An attached find spot enhanced the
historical value of an artifact, making it more desirable, and correspondingly
boosting its price in the marketplace. These dealers’ provenances have clung
tenaciously to works that have never been proved to come from the alleged find
spots. An interesting case involves three pieces of Greek gold,
“said to be from” Taranto, acquired by the British Museum from
Alessandro Castellani in 1872: a scepter, ring, and elaborate necklace, all
dated about 350 - 320 B. C. In an 1871 report recommending the purchase,
Charles Newton, keeper of the Greek and Roman department, listed the three
objects as “found in a tomb at Tarentum….This tomb was probably that
of a priestess buried with the insignia of her sacerdotal office.” The
“insignia” was the gold scepter, the only such Greek scepter in existence.
This information clearly derived from Castellani, the dealer in this
instance, and it has been associated with the objects ever since.
The scepter
is now 20¼ inches tall (51.4 cm), as restored by Castellani. At
its top is a Corinthian capital surmounted by a fruit of green glass set within
a spray of acanthus leaves. The shaft of the scepter is adorned with gold wire netting,
enlivened with dots of enamel.” The base is a gold disk,
featuring a rosette at the center, surrounded by rings of decorative wire.
A screw had been affixed to the base, presumably by Castellani, to secure
it to the shaft. Other than this, the object is apparently authentic. The ring
has an ornate box bezel and features the depiction of a woman, worked in
relief, who is seated and holds an object that resembles a scepter.
When the
necklace was acquired, it was made up of fifteen rosettes, eight double lotus
flowers, and eight spherical beads, as well as a clasp of two long beads and an
additional rosette. Hanging from the rosettes were seven large female heads and
eight amphora-type pendants; hanging from the lotuses were eight small heads. A
rosette and seed pendant dangled from the central female head. Two of the large
heads have bulls’ horns and ears, leading to their identification as Io,
priestess of Hera and daughter of Inachus, king of Argos.
Recent study has determined that the necklace was restored in the nineteenth
century, presumably by Castellani, and the items that did not belong to the
original necklace have now been removed. The Castellani firm
produced modern versions of this necklace, including one in the Villa Giulia.
The Castellani necklace has head plaques rather than sculptural head pendants,
small shells hang from the plaques, and the smaller heads of the original
necklace are replaced by seeds. Not “a perfect imitation of the ancient
work,” the Castellani necklace is nonetheless a creative adaptation of the
“Taranto” necklace and a fine piece of archaeological jewelry.
The
information that Alessandro Castellani provided in 1872 on the three “Taranto”
antiquities has featured in all subsequent studies of the objects. The three
pieces, taken together, have given rise to a wonderful interpretation of the
grouping:
The sceptre is, in fact, a symbol of authority, either royal or
religious. Since any monarchy at Taranto seems to have ended around 473 B.C. if
not before, it seems most probable that the sceptre belonged to a priestess, a
symbol of the power of the deity whom she served. Now the presence in the same
tomb of a ring with the depiction of a seated female holding a very similar
sceptre suggests that the jewellery worn by this priestess may well have been
chosen deliberately—hopefully not by Castellani. As a result, when we notice
that two of the female heads on the necklace have horns and therefore represent
Io, once the priestess of Hera, it is very tempting to wonder if the owner of
this set of jewellery might have been a priestess of Hera at Taranto.
However, “hopefully not
by Castellani” is the only sustainable part of this theory. It is not
certain that the three items were found together, and it cannot be proved that
they came from a tomb at Taranto. Although recent scholars have noted this
problem, the objects are still grouped together and associated with the
“Taranto priestess.” The forged provenience that has followed these
pieces since their sale by Castellani will forever prevent us from knowing their
real find spot(s), owner(s), and significance.
The Castellani Legacy and the Study
of Ancient Jewelry
The jewelry
from the “Tomb of the Taranto Priestess” and two other groups of unexcavated finds in the British Museum have
been used as the basis for a learned treatise on a South Italian school of
jewelry, bringing in objects from other collections, most of which are unexcavated.
Not only are stylistic traits defined for this group, but several
workshops have been identified, and the coins “found” with one of the
hoards are brought in as evidence for dating. Unfortunately, unexcavated
objects have limited usefulness for this type of study, and coins
“associated” with such finds cannot be used for dating purposes.
Nonetheless, it is important to try to understand the artifacts. This conundrum
is the legacy of the antiquarian archaeologists, the Castellani preeminent
among them, a legacy that has affected all subsequent study of ancient jewelry.
Fortunately,
this problem has come to the fore and is now a part of scholarly discourse.
Students are learning to distinguish between excavated and unexcavated
objects and to rely on the former in their study of the latter. Antiquities
laws have been adopted to protect archaeological sites from looting and objects
from illegal export. The issues of repair, reworking , and
forgery of ancient jewelry—at first ignored and then approached with
hesitation—are now the subject of lively inquiry, as can be attested by the
technical studies cited in this article. And it is the Castellani family,
ultimately, that can be thanked for this last development, with their loving examination
of the techniques of ancient jewelry.
© Bard Graduate Center, Elizabeth Simpson.
Alessandro Castellani, Archaeological
Journal (1861): 367. The publication reports on his lecture to the
Archaeological Institute, London. The event figures prominently in the writings
of both Alessandro and Augusto Castellani.
Ibid., p. 367.
Alessandro Castellani, “Antique Jewelry and Its Revival,” Penn Monthly
(October 1876): 765. For Vulci, see George Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London: John Murray, 1848):
396ff.
Alessandro Castellani, Archaeological
Journal (1861): 367.
Geoffrey Munn, Castellani and
Giuliano (New York: Rizzoli, 1984): 25. Early jewelry produced by the firm
was in the contemporary European taste, influenced by English, French, and
Russian styles featuring diamonds and colored stones in openwork settings; see
ibid., p. 46. See also chap. 2, by Stefanie Walker, and chap. 6, by Judy Rudoe,
in this volume.
The Campana Museum had been famous since 1835, when Pope Gregory
himself had visited the museum. Françoise Gaultier, “La collection Campana
et la collection étrusque du Musée du Louvre,” Les Etrusques et l’Europe (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées
nationaux, 1992): 351. See also chap. 2, by Stefanie Walker, in this volume.
Susanna Sarti, Giovanni Pietro
Campana (1808-1880): The Man and His Collection (Oxford: Archaeopress,
2001), 19-24, 32. George Dennis laments that “the richest and rarest articles
of gold and jewellery find ready purchasers in the Cavaliere Campana, and a few
other kindred collectors of antique treasures,” rather than remaining at the
sites where they originated. Dennis, Cities
and Cemeteries (1848): 433.
Munn, Castellani (1984):
87-88. Munn states that Alessandro Castellani helped negotiate the sale to the
French, although this seems unlikely. See ASR, Famiglia Castellani 196/4, pp.
113-17. See also Hugh Tait, ed., The Art
of the Jeweller (London: British Museum, 1984): 147.
Augusto Castellani, “A Discourse on Ancient Jewelry,” Art Journal 8 (1869): 129.
Alessandro Castellani, Archaeological
Journal (1861): 365.
Ibid., p. 367.
Alessandro Castellani, “Antique Jewelry” (1876): 766.
William Burges, “Antique Jewellery and Its Revival,” Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review (April
1863): 403- 4.
Thus my father introduced in Rome Italian jewelry, which, copied
from ornaments of the rarest beauty among the ancients, and recently dug up,
has acquired, after thirty years’ labour, the special name of Italian
archaeological jewelry.” Augusto Castellani, “Discourse on Ancient
Jewelry” (1869): 130; Alessandro Castellani, “Antique Jewelry”
(1876): 765.
Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Tour of the
Sepulchres of Etruria (London, 1843), 271; quoted in Munn, Castellani (1984): 14. The princess’s
sister-in-law, Caroline Murat , also wore ancient jewelry, said to be from Pompeii.
The Poetical Works of Robert Browning
VII, The Ring and the Book, Books I-IV, ed. Stefan Hawlin and T.A.J.
Burnett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998): 330-31.
“Young Lady on the High Classical School of Ornament,” Punch 15 (16 July 1859): 30. Munn, Castellani (1984): 19-21.
A report on the 1862 London exhibition asserts that “every
piece exhibited is an accurate copy of an existing
authentic specimen of ancient work; that not only the ornamental style, but
the processes which were formerly used, have been followed….” (Jewellers, Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, and
Watchmakers’ Monthly Magazine I [1863]: 103).
Augusto Castellani,
“Discourse on Ancient Jewelry” (1869): 129.
Jewellers, Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, and
Watchmakers’ Monthly Magazine I (1863): 103
All the
Campana jewelry was sold to France except for the “Livia Cameo,”
which went to Russia; see Sarti, Campana (2001):
74. The Campana jewelry was first exhibited in the Palais de l’Industrie (1862)
and sent to the Louvre the following year. Gaultier, “Collection
Campana” (1992): 354-58. It has been said that the Campana pieces were
worked on by the Castellani jewelers, although without proof; see Sarti, Campana (2001): 32.
Some
scholars have chosen to differentiate between the words provenience and provenance, using
provenience to mean the actual find
spot of an object and provenance to
indicate the history of an object’s ownership. This practice is followed in the
present publication. Dealer’s provenance is
used here to signify the alleged find spot attributed to an object by a dealer.
Excavations
at Pompeii and Herculaneum were officially begun in 1748 and 1738 respectively.
Johann
Joachim Winckelmann, Sendschreiben von
den herculanischen Entdeckungen (Dresden, 1762); quoted in Christopher
Parslow, Redis covering Antiquity: Karl
Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995): 224.
For this
remarkable story see Parslow, Rediscovering
Antiquity (1995).
Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries (1848):
lxxxv-lxxxvi.
Ibid.,
pp. 407-10. According to Dennis, the situation got worse after the Prince’s
death: “we come upon a gang of excavators, in the employ of the Princess
of Canino….At the mouth of the pit in which they were at work, sat the capo, or overseer—his gun by his side,
as an in terrorem hint to his men to
keep their hands from picking and stealing. We found them on the point of
opening a tomb. The roof…had fallen in, and the tomb was filled with earth, out
of which the articles it contained had to be dug in detail. This is generally a
process requiring great care and tenderness, little of which, however, was here
used, for it was seen by the first objects brought to light that nothing of
value was to be expected….Coarse pottery of unfigured, and even of unvarnished
ware, and a variety of small articles in black clay were its only produce; but
our astonishment was only equalled by our indignation when we saw the labourers
dash them to the ground as they drew them forth, and crush them beneath their
feet as things ‘cheaper than seaweed’….It is lamentable that excavations should
be carried on in such a spirit: with the sole view of gain, with no regard to
the advancement of science. Such is too frequently the case.”
Sarti, Campana (2001): 24-31, and for a list of
excavations conducted by Campana or on his properties, p. 19. For the Campana tomb
see Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries (1848):
45, 47- 61; Sarti, Campana (2001):
21- 23, after F. Delpino, Cronache Veientane
(1985); Giovanni Colonna, ” L’aventure romantique,” Les Etrusques et l’Europe (Paris:
Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1992): 335-36. Campana
“discovered” tombs at both these sites, which he stocked with
antiquities brought in from elsewhere. This was clearly a deliberate deception,
but in keeping with the practice of furnishing empty tombs to cater to the
sentiments of tourists. The painted tomb at Veii is described in detail by Dennis:
“It is of very remarkable character, and its proprietor, the Cavaliere
Campana,…with that reverence for antiquity and excellent taste for which he is
renowned, has not only preserved it open for the gratification of the traveller,
but has left it with its furniture untouched, almost in the exact condition in which
it was discovered.”
Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries (1848):
410. In his critique of the excavations of the princess of Canino at Vulci,
Dennis remarks: “Yet [excavations] are occasionally conducted, as by the
Cavalier Campana of Rome, by men whose views are not bounded by money-bags, but
who are actuated by a genuine love and zeal for science.”
Emil Braun, director of the Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica
(1840-56), believed that Campana had preserved the original context of his
antiquities; see Sarti, Campana (2001)
: 73.
Accor ding to ibid., pp. 61, 75, the catalogue was probably
published in 1857 or 1858 and was written either by Campana himself or someone
he commissioned.
Alessandro Castellani, ” Antique Jewelry” (1876): 767;
Augusto Castellani, “Discourse on Ancient Jewelry” (1869): 130.
Alessandro Castellani, “Antique Jewelry” (1876): 767.
For a list of Castellani publications, see the bibliography, in this
volume.
Anna Maria Moretti Sgubini, ed., La
collezione Augusto Castellani (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2000):
129-33.
Excavations were subject to legislation that had been enacted to
prevent unauthorized digging and dispersal of finds; see Sarti, Campana (2001): 19.
Dyfri Williams, “The Brygos Tomb Reassembled and 19th-century
Commerce in Capuan Antiquities,” American
Journal of Archaeology 96 (1992): 619. Judy Rudoe, “Alessandro
Castellani’s Letters to Henry Layard,”Jewelry Studies 5 (1991): 112-13.
Rudoe, “Letters to Henry Layard” (1991): 112-23. It is not
clear whether Alessandro was able to sell the diadem or carry out the planned
Naples project. The diadem in the Victoria and Albert Museum, acquired in 1884
after Alessandro Castellani’s death, may be the diadem that he tried to sell.
“In 1870, when the necessity of taking serious steps for the
protection of the capital of Italy from the continual peril of inundation began
to be talked of, I published a number of letters in the papers, and secured the
cooperation of several competent gentlemen in my endeavors to persuade the government
to order regular excavations to be made in the bed of the river, before the
mines and the dredging machines had had time to destroy the precious monuments
heaped up within its borders as in a casket.” Alessandro Castellani,
” The Antique Mural Paintings and Stuccos Discovered near the
Farnesina,” American Art Review 1,
no. 9 (1880): 390.
Scribner’s Monthly 3, no.
4 (1872): 498.
Alessandro Castellani, ” Antique Mural Paintings” (1880):
390.
Weber excavated at Herculaneum between 1750 and 1764; see Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity (1995). Layard
worked at Nimrud between 1845 and 1851. Nimrud was initially thought to be the city
of Nineveh. For a recent account of excavations in Assyria, see Mogens T.
Larsen, The Conquest of Assyria:
Excavations in an Antique Land (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).
Schliemann worked at Troy in 1870-73, 1878-79, 1882, and at Mycenae in 1874,
1876. For an account of Schliemann’s excavations and a complete bibliography,
see Katie Demakopoulou, ed., Troy,
Mycenae, Tiryns, Orchomenos—Heinrich Schliemann: The 100th Anniversary of
His Death (Athens: Ministry of Culture of Greece, 1990).
For a recent study of this important group of finds, see “Case
Study: “The Treasure of Priam,” in Elizabeth Simpson, ed., The Spoils of War-World War II and Its
Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property (New
York: Abrams, 1997), 191-213. Heinrich Schliemann ‘s wife Sophia can be seen wearing
some of the items from ” Priam’s Treasure” in a famous photograph;
reproduced in ibid., p. 193, fig. 84. For Layard’s gift of sculptures to his cousin,
see John Malcolm Russell, From Nineveh to
New York (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997): 53-72.
Esarhaddon ruled Assyria in 680-669 B.C. Judy Rudoe, “The
Layards, Cortelazzo and Castellani: New Information from the Diaries of Lady Layard,” Jewellery Studies I
(1983-84): 59. The parure was made by Messrs. Phillips of 23, Cockspur Street.
Layard and Alessandro toured the Etruscan tombs of Cerveteri together in 1859;
in 1869 and again in 1880 Layard and his wife visited the Castellani shop in
Rome. See ibid., p. 76; Rudoe, “Letters to Henry Layard” (1991): 107.
“Adaptation” will serve here as an inclusive term for copies,
adaptations, and pastiches; “copy” and “pastiche” will be
reserved for more specific uses. Geoffrey Munn uses “pastiche” as his
all-inclusive term.
See Sarti, Campana (2001):
19. Today, the term “excavated” is most accurately used for objects
that have been legally and scientifically excavated and their contexts
thoroughly documented.
C. Densmore Curtis, The
Barberini Tomb, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol. 5 (Rome: American Academy in Rome,
1925): 9-52; Densmore Curtis, The
Bernardini Tomb, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol 3 (1919):
9-90. The style of the jewelry from the Barberini and Bernardini tombs is Etruscan
Orientalizing, although Palestrina (Praeneste) is in Latium, to the south of ancient
Etruria proper. Alessandro Castellani was called in by the government to give
his opinion of the finds from the Bernardini Tomb and arrange the pieces in
cases for display. He was impressed with the “AssyrianEgyptian-
Phoenician” imports in the tomb, which he likened to the Cesnola objects
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; see The
Nation 24: 623 (June 7, 1877): 335. For the Regolini-Galassi tomb see Luigi
Pareti, La Tomba Regolini-Calassi (Rome:
Vatican, 1947).
Plans were drawn of the Regolini-Galassi tomb, but no record existed
for the location of the Bernardini tomb (bones were said to have been found but
not preserved), and the Barberini tomb was the most poorly documented of all:
no accurate notes were taken, no inventory was made of the objects until long
after they were found, and almost nothing was known about the tomb’s form or
its occupants. “It is therefore by no means certain that all of the
specimens now on exhibition came from the one seventh century tomb, and it is
even possible that other objects which once were in the tomb have found their
way into other collections.” Densmore Curtis, Barberini Tomb (1925): 9-10.
Antiquités du Bosphore
Cimmérien (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1854): pl.19. A second edition was
published in 1892. This book was not in the Castellani library as of 1865,
although the firm could easily have obtained access to the engravings through
the Saint Petersburg goldsmith August Zwerner or other colleagues (see chap. 5,
by Maurizio Donati, in this volume). Printed reproductions of gold artifacts from
the “Cimmerian Bosphorus” were available as early as 1848; see A.
Ashik, Vosporskoye Tsarstvo, vol. 2 (Odessa, 1848).
Dyfri Williams and Jack Ogden, Greek
Gold: Jewellery of the Classical World (London: British Museum, 1994):
122-27, 136-51, 180-95. See also Munn, Castellani
(1984): 115-16. Important finds made at other sites in the region,
including Seven Brothers (excavated 1875-76), Nymphaion (1866, 1876),
Pantikapaion (1840, 1845, 1854), Kekuvatsky (1839), Pavlovsky (1858), Taman (1855),
and Chersonesos (1899), are discussed by Williams and Ogden.
The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited the region in the fifth
century B.C., had much to say about the Scythians; see Herod. 4.1ff.
Cleared by P. Dubrux and excavated subsequently by A. E. Lutsenko in
1875. See Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold (1994):
136.
Munn, Castellani (1984):
116.
Alessandro Castellani, Archaeological
Journal (1861): 367.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold
(1994): 180.
“probably wrongly…” (ibid., p.184).
Ibid., p. 186.
The Great Bliznitza pendants, like the Kul Oba earrings, were made
up as brooches.
Dealer’s provenance is
used here to signify the alleged find spot attributed to an object by a dealer.
(See n. 22, above.)
Interestingly enough, Lenormant, in his publication on the Campana
collection, cites the “Melos” necklace as one of the objects that had
escaped the plunder that he says had devastated
Greece; see François Lenormant,” Collection Campana,” Gazette des Beaux Arts (1863): 155.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold
(1994): 68-69.
And see also the close variation in the Villa Giulia; illustrated in
Moretti Sgubini, ed., Collezione Augusto
Castellani (2000): 213, no. 186.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold
(1994): 69: “The necklace was repaired by Alessandro Castellani in the
1860s or 1870s.” In fact, it is unlikely that such work was done by
Alessandro himself, as he had lost his left hand in an accident when he was
young.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold
(1994): 69: “His work can be identified on the basis of the techniques
used and by the way in which his elements have discoloured.”
The examination was made in connection with the 1994 Greek Gold exhibition; see ibid. The
results of the examination of the “Capua” necklace are published in
Nigel Meeks’s fascinating article “A Greek Gold Necklace: A Case of Dual
Identity,”in Dyfri Williams, ed., The
Art of the Greek Goldsmith (London: British Museum, 1998): 127-60.
Meeks’s detailed comparison between the materials and methods used
to make the two halves of the necklace has revealed important differences
between ancient goldworking techniques and those of the nineteenth-century
archaeological jewelers.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to ascertain just which ones these
are; see Sarti, Campana (2001): 24,
n.212.
For an antefix reconstructed from a fragment of a face, which was
completed and furnished with an elaborate helmet with crest, horns, and animal
ears, and a base decorated with three lions heads, see ibid., p. 29; and for
Campana’s penchant for buying fragments of Greek vases for the purpose of
restoration, often fabricating whole vases from them. (p. 122).
Ibid., pp. 29-30. Campana claimed that this statue was inherited
from his grandfather who had acquired it from the Pope.
Lenormant describes the Campana diadem as the preeminent piece in
the Campana collection; see Lenormant, “Collection Campana” (1863):
308. Regarding the Castellani diadems, three other Castellani copies were known
to Munn: in the Villa Giulia, the National Museum of Ireland (Dublin), and a private
collection; see Munn , Castellani (1984):
88; see also fig. 9-3. A fifth Castellani diadem has been located in another
private collection; see Diana Scarisbrick, Tiara
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000): 101.
Sarti, Campana (2001): 73;
and Rudoe, “letters to Henry Layard” (1991): 112-23.
Judy Rudoe, “The ‘Archaeological Style’ in 19th-century
Jewellery,” in Tait, ed., Art of the
Jeweller (1984): 149-51.
This is also referred to as “a
baule,” characterized in English by Marshall as the “box”
type. F.H. Marshall, Catalogue of the
Jewellery, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities,
British Museum. (London: British Museum, 1911): 114.
Rudoe,“‘Archaeological Style’” (1984): 150.
Munn thought that the Castellani must have recognized that these
“bracelets” were nothing more than “tastefully assembled
fragments,” and he wondered why they would have used them as prototypes
for their archaeological-style bracelets. He suggests that the Campana
“bracelets” might have been known to be pastiches but admired
nonetheless. Munn, Castellani (1984):
154.
For the forgery of ancient scarabs and the possibility that one of
the scarabs in this necklace is a modern imitation, see W.J. Stillman,
“Scarabaei ed Altri,” Atlantic
Monthly 18:108 (October 1866): 443. Count Tyskiewicz claimed that
Alessandro Castellani “never succeeded in acquiring any real knowledge of
gems; and, though thousands of them passed through his hands, he was up to the
end always taken in….”; Michael Tyskiewicz, Memories of an Old Collector (London: Green and Co., 1898): 19,
157-58. The forgery of scarabs was widespread in the nineteenth century, with
fine renditions made in the East.
For the most comprehensive treatment of this group, see Gertrud
Platz-Horster and Hans-Ulrich Tietz, “‘Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers’—mit
einem Exkurs über die Granulation bei den Etruskern,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 35 (1993): 7-45. For the Campana
necklace, see ibid., pp. 25-35. Another scarab necklace in the Louvre is made
up of fourteen Etruscan scarabs without mounts, strung longitudinally,
alternating with thirteen “Ostrogothic” rock-crystal beads (fifth
century A.D.); this necklace was acquired in 1825 from the Edmond Durand
collection; see ibid., p. 36.
Ibid.,
pp. 26-29, 35. It is certainly possible that the items were gathered in antiquity,
some time in the second century B.C. or later, and assembled, but this appears
unlikely. The “a globolo” style
is named for the marks left by the rounded drill bit used to make the decoration.
Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries (1848): lxxii-
lxxiv.
Ida
Caruso, “Il gioiello ‘archaeologico’ Castellani: autenticita, rielaborazione,
falsificazione,” in Edilberto Formigli, ed., Prezioso in oro (Siena: Nuova immagine, 1995): 82.
Platz-Horster and Tietz, ‘“Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers”’ (1993):
33.
Ibid.,
pp. 18-24. See also Judith Swaddling, Andrew Oddy, and Nigel Meeks,
“Etruscan and Other Early Gold Wire from Italy,” in Classical Gold Jewellery and the Classical
Tradition, Jewellery Studies 5 (1991): 16-17.The goldwork is undergoing
further scientific study by the museum.
Platz-Horster and Tietz, ‘“Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers”’ (1993):
18; see also Swaddling, Oddy, and Meeks, “Etruscan and Other Early Gold
Wire” (1991): 16, although some of the information they give has been superseded
by the Platz-Horster and Tietz study.
Platz-Horster
and Tietz, ‘“Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers”’ (1993): 8-18. This
necklace was examined before being auctioned and is now in a private
collection. See Antiquities, sale.
cat., Christie ‘s New York, 15 December 1992, lot 35.
Platz-Horster and Tietz, ‘“Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers”’ (1993):
fig 1, p. 9.
Ibid.,
oo. 11-14.
Ibid.,
p. 33.
Ibid.,
p. 39.
Interestingly enough, however, the scarab mounts on the Castellani scarab
necklaces resemble the mounts from the Potocki and British Museum necklaces more
closely than those from the Campana necklace.
This was
probably also true for the Potocki necklace, although its provenance is
unclear.
The
Victoria and Albert necklace was purchased along with a scarab bracelet, and
the necklace at Villa Giulia is part of a parure that included two bracelets, a
pendant, and a ring; see Platz-Horster and Tietz, “‘Etruskische
Skarabäen-kolliers’” (1993): 36. One scarab ring in the Castellani collection
(now at Villa Giulia), “said to be from Cerveteri,” is actually a nineteenth-century
production; see Caruso, “Gioiello ‘archaeologico’” (1995): 82-83; Caruso
has called it a forgery.
Platz-Horster and Tietz, ‘“Etruskische Skarabäen-kolliers”’ (1993):
37-38
Cicero, Verr. II, IV, 54, in J.J. Pollitt, The Art of Rome, c. 753 B.C.A.D. 337:
Sources and Documents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983): 73.
The
hermaphrodite in the Louvre rests on a mattress attributed to Bernini; see
Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste
and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900 (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1981): 234-36. The diskobolos in the Capitoline
Museums , Rome, was restored by Monnot, who did not know that the work was a
fragmentary diskobolos; the first complete version of Myron’s diskobolos was excavated
in 1781, long after Monnot’s death in 1733. See Seymour Howard, “Some
Eighteenth-century Restorations of Myron’s Discobolus,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
25 (1962): 330-31. See also Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique (1981): 199-202. The extent to which artworks
should be repaired or restored is still a matter of ongoing debate.
Munn, Castellani (1984): 154; and see a letter
from Shirley Bury in Arthur Gordon, “The Inscribed Fibula Praenestina:
Problems of Authenticity,” Classical
Studies 16 (1975): 70.
Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer,” I tre Achelooi: falsificazioni ottocentesche di
gioielleria antica,” in Edilberto Formigli, ed., Preziosi in oro (Siena: Nuova immagine, 1995): 76; Edilberto
Formigli and Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, ” Einige Falschungen antiken
Goldschmucks im 19. Jahrhundert,” Archäologischer
Anzeiger 3 (1993): 325-26 and figs. 37-42. The head was originally thought
to represent Bacchus; see Lenormant, “Collection Campana ” (1863):
313. Achelous, a river god and son of Oceanus and Tethys, could appear in the guise
of a bull, serpent, or bull-headed man.
Heilmeyer, “Tre Achelooi ” (1995): 76-77.
Formigli and Heilmeyer, ” Falschungen antiken
Goldschmucks” (1993): 321. In the recent Altes Museum catalogue, the pendant
is attributed to the Castellani workshop; see Gertrud Platz-Horster, Ancient Gold Jewellery (Berlin, von Zabern
, 2002): 33-35. But for an interesting option, see Tyskiewicz, Memories (1898): 160: “The workmen
of the Casa Castellani used frequently to undertake work outside the atelier; and turned the skill which they
had acquired there to good account in the service of swindlers.”
Heilmeyer, “Tre Achelooi” (1995) : 77; Formigli and Heilmeyer,”
Falschungen antiken Goldschmucks” (1993): 330-31. The British Museum is
conducting further research on the pendant.
But see
Tyskiewicz, Memories (1898): 160.
Again,
Alessandro did not personally sell the British Museum its Achelous necklace.
Moretti
Sgubini, ed., Collezione Augusto
Castellani (2000): 212-13, no. 185.
For a lively
debate over the authenticity of the sarcophagus, see the letters of Isaac
Taylor and C.T. Newton in successive issues of the Academy 15 (8, 15, 22 February and 1 March 1879). Dennis wrote in
support of Newton and the authenticity of the sarcophagus on March 1.
Mark
Jones, Fake? The Art of Deception (London:
British Museum, 1990): 30-31. Although the inscription was condemned as a copy
soon after the purchase, and the sarcophagus was suspected as well, the museum
did not officially acknowledge the sarcophagus to be a forgery until 1935, when
it was finally taken off exhibition; see New
York Times (2 November 1935): 6.
Sarti, Campana (2001): 30. Williams,
“Brygos Tomb Reassembled” (1992): 621.
Gaultier, ” Collection Campana” (1992): 358.
Munn, Castellani (1984): 14, 132, 152-55;
Sarti, Campana (2001): 29-30;
Colonna, “Aventure romantique” (1992): 336; Burges, “Antique
Jewellery” (1863): 404; Stillman, “Scarabaei” (1866): 443
Augusto
Castellani, ” Discourse on Ancient Jewelry” (1869): 130. The same
information was given by Alessandro Castellani. See also ibid., pp. 134-35, on forged
gemstones and scarabs.
Dennis
explains the “mystery” surrounding the provenience of unexcavated
antiquities in Italy: “There exists a class of unlicensed diggers in that
land, who live by poaching on other men’s ground, carrying on their depredations
generally by night, and, when they make a bag, conveying it at once to Rome, where they find a
sure market for their antique game…. Both seller and receiver are naturally
reticent as to how, when, and whence the stolen property came into their
possession (Academy 15 [1 March
1879]: 192-93).
This
problem is not well known out side the field of archaeology. Munn, Castellani (1984), for instance, repeats
such dealers’ provenances as though they were fact throughout his text.
Charles
Newton in Dyfri Williams, “Three Groups of Fourth Century South Italian
Jewellery in the British Museum,” Mitteilungen
des Deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung 95 (1988):
75. See also Andrew Oliver, “Aspects of Hellenistic Jewellery from
Italy,” in Williams, Art of the
Greek Goldsmith (1998): 85-86, on two smaller objects
(“sceptre-pins”) with the same type of decoration.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold (1994):
203. The three objects in this group were examined in preparation for the Greek Gold exhibition.
When
acquired by the museum, the core of the shaft was gilded copper; this has been
replaced by a tube of white resin. The shaft may now be somewhat shorter than
it was originally (ibid.); also see Williams, “Three Groups” (1998):
76.
For the
base, see ibid., pl. 30:4.
Williams and Ogden, Greek Gold (1994):
205.
Apollod. 2.1.3, et al. Io was loved by Zeus, who turned her into a heifer to
protect her from his jealous wife Hera.
Remaining are fourteen rosettes, all eight double lotuses, six large heads,
eight amphora-type pendants, and eight small heads. These are thought to have
belonged to the original necklace, which was fragmentary before it was
restored.
Williams, “Three Groups” (1998): 78.
“Tomb of the Taranto Priestess” heads the section in Williams and
Ogden, Greek Gold (1994): 202. At the
same time it is noted that “since this group of jewellery was bought from
Alessandro Castellani, a consummate jeweller and dealer, there must remain the
possibility that he was responsible for grouping the pieces together”
(ibid.).
The
other two groups are the “Avola Hoard” (acquired 1923) and the
“Santa Eufemia Treasure ” (acquired 1896). Williams, “Three
Groups” (1998): 78-87.
Adriana
Calinescu, ed., Ancient Jewelry and
Archaeology (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996);
but see also Elizabeth Simpson, review of Ancient
Jewelry and Archaeology and Ancient
Gold Jewelry at the Dallas Museum of Art, in Journal of Design History 12 , no. 3 (1999): 293-97.
These
include national laws and international treaties such as the “UNESCO
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import,
Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property” (1970) and the
” UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural
Objects” (1955). See appendices in Simpson, Spoils of War (1997): 272- 311.