RIGHETTI, Francesco

Italian sculptor, silversmith and bronzeGLOSSARYAn alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina.-founder. He quickly became a successor to his teacher Luigi Valadier, a leading Roman silversmith who also produced copies after the AntiqueGLOSSARYthe classical age of Greece and Rome began with the Greek migrations of the 2nd millennium BC, and ended in the West in 476 AD with the deposition of the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus (c. 475 AD); in the East it ended in 529 AD when the Platonic Academy was closed by Justinian (482 - 565 AD)., and responded with skill and energy to the taste of collectors for faithful replicas of celebrated statues, both ancient and modern, and antiquarian ornaments. Righetti worked on large-scale projects for popes and monarchs: he is best remembered, however, for his small bronze statuettes after famous antiquities.

In 1781 Righetti received his first known large-scale commission, for 12 full-sized lead casts of famous statues for the English banker Henry Hope at his country house at Welgelegen, near Haarlem (7 remain in situ). Painted white to resemble marbleGLOSSARYloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles., the statues chosen were chiefly ClassicalGLOSSARYRelating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration. works such as the Venus de' Medici and Apollino (both Florence, Uffizi) but also included certain more recent statues, such as Giambologna's Mercury (version, Florence, Bargello) and François Duquesnoy's St Susanna (Rome, Santa Maria di Loreto).

During the 1780s Righetti established himself as a producer of bronze miniatures after famous antique prototypes, a genreGLOSSARYIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature. of sculpture that developed in the second half of the eighteenth century in response to the burgeoning art market. Like any metal-casting project, Righetti's enterprise was collaborative. Aside from maintaining a workshop staff that included his son Luigi, Righetti is known to have employed other artists to sculpt for him. Documentary sources indicate, for instance, that the sculptor Camillo Pacetti copied antiquities for Righetti in 1785.

In 1794 Righetti published a catalogue-style price list of the miniatureGLOSSARYTerm originally applied to the art of manuscript illumination but later used of paintings, usually portraits, executed on a very small scale. The earliest miniaturists (16th century) continued to use the materials of the illuminators, painting in gouache on vellum or card. statues available from his workshop, a document that attests both to the scope of his production and to his promotional talent.

Pope Pius VII visited Righetti's studio in Naples in 1801 to see the gilt bronze altar set which he had commissioned for San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice and in 1805 Righetti became the head of the Vatican foundry.

In 1809, in his capacity as a bronze founder, Righetti collaborated with Antonio Canova to produce the giant bronze figure of Napoleon (Brera, Milan) for Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, the French viceroy of Italy. In 1819 Righetti and his son Luigi cast Canova's monumental equestrian Charles III, which still stands before the royal palace in Naples.

His son Luigi ran the Neapolitan studio in his absence and, after Righetti's death, Luigi and his son Francesco Righetti the Younger ran both the Neopolitan and Roman foundries. The works of the family, highly prized and for the most part easily portable, are distributed in some of the most important European and American collections.