FAMAG 1000.32
Framed tondo or roundel held in original crescent-shaped panel, supported by two low-relief Neoclassical sphinxes attributed to Michael Angelo Pergolesi, with acanthus and fern-leaf crest; gilded.
About this work
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Cipriani, Giovanni Battista RA (1727-1785): Two Putti, oil on paper adhered to wood, 20 cms diameter. Presented by De Pass, Alfred A.
More information about the frame
Cipriani is associated with the eighteenth-century Italian decorative artist, Michael Angelo Pergolesi, who designed furniture, interior fittings and plasterwork, and who frequently used sphinxes as an ornamental motif. For this reason this frame has been attributed to him.
This panel was once believed to have formed one of the curving base pieces of a coach decorated in Neoclassical style. However, as the back is not gilded this now seems unlikely. Other possibilities are that it was designed as part of a table base, a lyre or chair-back (see illustrations in Household Furniture by Thomas Hope, 1807). Cipriani himself produced decorative vignettes to be painted on or inlaid into furniture, since there was little demarcation between fine and applied art (merely between the subjects depicted). The detail of the heads and wings of the sphinxes is particularly fine.
About the Artist
Cipriani was born in Florence, where he trained under Ignatius Hugford. In Rome in the early 1750s he met the architect Sir William Chambers and the sculptor Joseph Wilton, who brought him to England in 1756.
He taught at the Duke of Richmond's Academy (1758) and became a founder Royal Academician in 1768, teaching at the Royal Academy Schools.
Cipriani painted ceilings and lunettes for Robert Adam (for example at the Lansdowne House) and medallions on satinwood furniture, as well as decorating coaches such as the Gold State Coach for George III in 1762.
He died in Hammersmith on December 14th 1785.