The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 74
FRANCESCO RIGHETTI (1749–1819)
17
Rome, late 18th century
Bust of Emperor Vitellius (15–69 ad)
After the Antique
Bronze with a verdigris patina, on a pedestal of Giallo Antico,
Orange Varois and Carrara marbles
47 cm (18½ in.) high, including pedestal
23 cm (9 in.) wide
12 cm (4¾ in.) × 12 cm (4¾ in.) base
inscribed
VITELIO on the socle
provenance
Private collection, Zurich, Switzerland
fig. 1
Roman, 1st half 2nd century ad,
Portrait of a Man, known as Vitellius,
marble, 48 cm high
Venice, Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
inv. no. 20
Renowned for his fine bronze statuettes after the antique, Francesco Righetti was
highly sought after amongst Grand Tourists in late eighteenth-century Rome.
He had trained in the workshop of the successful silversmith and bronzier Luigi
Valadier, where he was probably employed above all in the modelling and casting
of small and large bronzes. He quickly became a successor to his teacher, and
in 1779 opened his own studio in Via della Purificazione. Renowned patrons of
Righetti included the English banker Henry Hope (1753–1811), who commissioned
from him a set of twelve lead replicas of statues after antique and Renaissance
masters, and Frederick Hervey (1730–1803), 4th Earl of Bristol, who had two
elaborate candlesticks cast by the artist. Significantly too, Catherine the Great of
Russia (1729–1796) commissioned from Righetti a marble and bronze model of
Mount Parnassus with Apollo and the Muses, and in 1805 Pope Pius VII (1742–1823)
appointed him director of the Vatican foundry, succeeding Giuseppe Valadier
(1762–1839).
In 1786 Righetti published a list of the compositions after famous models, the
majority from classical antiquity, that his studio offered, which he issued again in
1794. Both editions featured ‘the Twelve Caesars’, an iconographic definition that
refers to portraits of Julius Caesar and the first eleven Emperors of Rome, which
includes Vitellius. The group of ‘the Twelve Caesars’ had been immortalized
by the Latin writer Suetonius in his 121 ad collection of imperial biographies
commonly known under the same title.
The surface of the present bronze has been carefully modelled, filed and then
patinated to achieve a verdigris effect, associated with ancient bronzes, showing
workmanship of the highest standard. The use of different marbles for the pedestal
is consistent with Righetti’s practice, and speaks of the taste for marmi colorati
that he had arguably absorbed during his time in Luigi Valadier’s workshop. A
comparable bust of Vitellius attributed to Righetti, from the Lily and Edmond
