Giuseppe Ceracchi (also known as ''Giuseppe Cirachi'') (4 July 1751 – 30 January 1801) was an Italian sculptor, active in a Neoclassic style in Italy, England and the nascent United States, who was a passionate republican during the American and French revolutions. He is remembered for his portrait busts of prominent British and American individuals.

Early years

He initially trained in Rome with

Tommaso Righi Tommaso Righi (1727–1802) was an Italian sculptor and stuccator with a practice in Rome. His marble and stucco funeral monument to Carlo Pio Balestra (died 1776), patron of the Church of Santi Luca e Martina, in the Roman Forum, is probably h ...

(1727–1802) and then continued his studies at the

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...

. He went to London in 1773, armed with a letter of introduction from Matthew Nulty, an English antiquarian and amateur sculptor in Rome, and worked under

Agostino Carlini Augostino Carlini or Agostino Carlini (c. 1718 – 15 August 1790) was an Italian sculptor and painter, who was born in Genoa but settled in England. He was also one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Life He features in ...

, a founding member of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

. Ceracchi exhibited busts at the Academy 1776-79 and was proposed for membership but received only four votes. His bust of the Academy's president

Sir Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depen ...

, is in the collection of the Royal Academy of Art. Living in Carlini's lodgings near Soho Square, Ceracchi modelled architectural ornament and bas-relief panels for

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...

, most notably a grand bas-relief of a Sacrifice to Bacchus, fourteen feet long and six feet high, in Adam's patent mastic composition, for the rear façade of Mr. Desenfans' house in Portland Place. In 1778, Ceracchi sculpted the statues of ''Temperance'' and ''Fortitude'' cast in Portland stone for the Strand façade of

Sir William Chambers __NOTOC__ Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy. Bio ...

Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ("O ...

, London; Carlini, who modelled the other two classical virtues for the project, was occupied with architectural sculpture for Somerset House over several years and doubtless recommended Ceracchi. As well as the portrait busts he executed in London is a full-length portrait of

Anne Seymour Damer Anne Seymour Damer, ''née'' Conway, (26 October 1748 – 28 May 1828) was an English sculptor. Once described as a 'female genius' by Horace Walpole, she was trained in sculpture by Giuseppe Ceracchi and John Bacon. Influenced by the Enlighten ...

, herself a sculptor and to some extent his pupil, in antique robes, with her tools at her feet (

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

). He went back to Rome in 1781 but had to leave the city twice due to his links with the Jacobin movements. He befriended

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

during the German poet's

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

in Italy in 1786 - 1788, as they dwelled in the same building in

Via del Corso The Via del Corso is a main street in the historical centre of Rome. It is straight in an area otherwise characterized by narrow meandering alleys and small piazzas. Considered a wide street in ancient times, the Corso is approximately 10 metres w ...

where Ceracchi had his atelier/house. Goethe commissioned him a bust of

Johann Joachim Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann (; ; 9 December 17178 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. "The prophet and founding he ...

and they lived together in Ceracchi's studio for a brief period in 1788.

Work in America

He made two visits to the new American republic, in 1790–2, in hopes of being commissioned to erect an extremely elaborate monument to the new republic and George Washington that he was convinced Congress had voted, and again in 1794–5, when he was disappointed in raising the funds for his venture by private subscription. Of this unrealizable project for a bombastic marble allegory

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...

drily remarked that the sculptor "was an enthusiastic worshipper of Liberty and Fame, and his whole soul was bent on securing the latter by rearing a monument to the former". Duplicate letters from Ceracchi to Washington and George Clinton describe plans for a national monument to Washington to be built in the newly planned capital city. During his two American visits he executed heroic portrait busts of leaders of the American Revolution, including Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), John Jay (Supreme Court, Washington DC), Thomas Jefferson (

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

with a Roman haircut and a toga (

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, George Clinton, again presented as a noble Roman (twice, Boston Atheneum and

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum ...

), and

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charlest ...

. Most of his prominent subjects sat to him to encourage his art, but none could be found to pay for their busts after the fact. Washington politely refused the gift of his Roman bust. At the request of artist Charles Willson Peale, Ceracchi was invited along with 30 artists to the Museum rooms at Philosophical Hall in Philadelphia on December 29, 1794 where he signed an agreement to create "The Columbianum, or American Academy of the Fine Arts." This short lived organization was a precursor of the modern day Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts created in 1805.

Work in Italy and France

He returned to Florence about 1794. In Rome he entered with fiery vehemence into the projected Italian Republic under revolutionary French auspices, when

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

arrived in the city in 1797, drawing Jacobin sympathizers to him. In the Jacobin riots of December 1797, during which brigadier-general

Mathurin-Léonard Duphot Léonard Mathurin Duphot (21 September 1769 – December 1797) was a French general and poet, whose ''Ode aux mânes des héros morts pour la liberté'' was highly fashionable at the time. Life Duphot was born in la Guillotière, a suburb of ...

was killed, Ceracchi was noted as a leader of the rioters; events led directly from Duphot's death to the Directoire's decision to occupy the city. French troops arrived on 10 February 1798 and on the 15th the Republic of Rome was proclaimed. In 1799 Ceracchi moved to Paris, where he sculpted the portrait bust of Pope Pius VI (Residenzmuseum, Munich; Palazzo Bianco, Genoa). Having sculpted a bust of Napoleon Bonaparte (Museum at Nantes), he became disillusioned after the ''coup d'état'' of 18 Brumaire to the extent that he was embroiled in the paranoid and furious reaction of Napoleon to the

plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise The Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, also known as the plot, was an assassination attempt on the First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, in Paris on 24 December 1800. It followed the of 10 October 1800, and was one of many Royalist and Cat ...

, an attempt against Napoleon's life in which a device dubbed the ''machine infernal'' was exploded, with loss of innocent life. Ceracchi was arrested for his alleged participation in the "

Conspiration des poignards The (from French, ) or () was an alleged assassination attempt against First Consul of France Napoleon Bonaparte. The members of the plot were not clearly established. Authorities at the time presented it as an assassination attempt on Napole ...

" and guillotined 30 January 1801, "going to the scaffold, it is said, in a triumphal chariot of his own design".Gunnis 1968.

Gallery

01 John Jay bust, US Supreme Court.jpg, Bust of

John Jay John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the first ...

George Washington by Ceracchi - marble, profile, MMA.jpg, Marble bust of

, 1795,

Portrait de Napoleon, Laboureur.JPG, Marble bust of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

, completed by Francesco Laboureur, 1810, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes Anne Seymour Damer.jpg, Statue of

References

Bibliography

External links

*
Art and the empire city: New York, 1825-1861
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Ceracchi (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ceracchi, Giuseppe 1751 births 1801 deaths Artists from Rome 18th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors People executed by France by decapitation Executed Italian people People executed by the First French Empire