Domenico Brucciani and the formatori of nineteenth-century Britain

"Born near the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815, Domenico Brucciani became the most important and prolific maker of plaster casts in nineteenth-century Britain. This first substantive study shows how he and his business used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture and the nationalisation of art education to monopolise the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. Based in Covent Garden in London, Brucciani built a network of fellow Italian émigré formatori and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles - including Elkington the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland the makers of Parian ware and Benjamin Cheverton with his sculpture reducing machine - to bring sculpture into the spaces of learning and leisure for as broad a public as possible. Brucciani's plaster casts survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, but the extraordinary breadth of his practice - making death masks of the famous and infamous, producing pioneering casts of anatomical, botanical and fossil specimens and decorating dance halls and theatres across Britain - is revealed here for the first time. By making unprecedented use of the nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain establishes the significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond."--Bloomsbury Publishing Born near the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815, Domenico Brucciani became the most important and prolific maker of plaster casts in nineteenth-century Britain. This first substantive study shows how he and his business used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture and the nationalisation of art education to monopolise the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. Based in Covent Garden in London, Brucciani built a network of fellow Italian émigré formatori and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles-including Elkington the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland the makers of Parian ware and Benjamin Cheverton with his sculpture reducing machine-to bring sculpture into the spaces of learning and leisure for as broad a public as possible. Brucciani's plaster casts survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, but the extraordinary breadth of his practice-making death masks of the famous and infamous, producing pioneering casts of anatomical, botanical and fossil specimens and decorating dance halls and theatres across Britain-is revealed here for the first time. By making unprecedented use of the nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain establishes the significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Preface......Page 14 Acknowledgements......Page 16 Wandering Italians......Page 18 The fortunes of Brucciani’s formatori......Page 31 Chapter 2: Object Lessons......Page 38 The context of the Schools of Design......Page 39 Brucciani and the educational market......Page 41 The contested classical in industrial education......Page 43 Plaster casts as teaching objects......Page 48 The Leeds School of Design: A case study......Page 52 Chapter 3: Exhibitions Great and Small......Page 60 Brucciani’s Apollo Belvedere at the Great Exhibition of 1851......Page 61 Brucciani’s Greek Slave and the International Exhibition of 1862......Page 65 Brucciani beyond London......Page 71 The Galleria delle Belle Arti......Page 73 Exhibiting plasters in parks and gardens......Page 77 Plaster casts and production of ceremonial space......Page 82 Decorating the Alexandra Palace (twice)......Page 86 Chapter 4: Death Masks and Dance Halls......Page 92 Posthumous plaster heads and hands......Page 93 The places of plaster and the spaces of rational recreation......Page 110 The British Museum......Page 120 The South Kensington Museum......Page 122 The National Portrait Gallery......Page 131 The Natural History Museum......Page 133 Plasters in ‘provincial’ museums: Leeds Art Gallery......Page 141 Australasia......Page 143 North America......Page 146 The death of Domenico Brucciani......Page 150 D. Brucciani and Company Limited......Page 152 The first rescue mission......Page 155 The second rescue mission......Page 157 The Department for the Sale of Casts......Page 163 Conclusion......Page 171 Chapter 1......Page 174 Chapter 2......Page 177 Chapter 3......Page 184 Chapter 4......Page 189 Chapter 5......Page 194 Chapter 6......Page 199 Primary sources......Page 205 Secondary sources......Page 208 Index......Page 213

Born near the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815, Domenico Brucciani became the most important and prolific maker of plaster casts in nineteenth-century Britain. This first substantive study shows how he and his business used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture and the nationalisation of art education to monopolise the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. Based in Covent Garden in London, Brucciani built a network of fellow Italian émigré formatori and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles-including Elkington the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland the makers of Parian ware and Benjamin Cheverton with his sculpture reducing machine-to bring sculpture into the spaces of learning and leisure for as broad a public as possible. Brucciani's plaster casts survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, but the extraordinary breadth of his practice-making death masks of the famous and infamous, producing pioneering casts of anatomical, botanical and fossil specimens and decorating dance halls and theatres across Britain-is revealed here for the first time. By making unprecedented use of the nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain establishes the significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond.

Born near the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815, Domenico Brucciani became the most important and prolific maker of plaster casts in nineteenth-century Britain. This first substantive study shows how he and his business used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture and the nationalisation of art education to monopolise the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. 0Based in Covent Garden in London, Brucciani built a network of fellow Italian emigre formatori and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles including Elkington the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland the makers of Parian ware and Benjamin Cheverton with his sculpture reducing machine. 0Brucciani's plaster casts from the antique survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, but the extraordinary breadth of his practice-making death masks of the famous and infamous, producing pioneering casts of anatomical, botanical and fossil specimens and decorating dance halls and theatres across Britain-is revealed here for the first time. By making unprecedented use of the nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, 'Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of Nineteenth-Century Britain' establishes the significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond This Book Is A History Of The Sculptural Practice Of Domenico Brucciani (1814-80) And The Plaster Casting Business D. Brucciani & Co. (ca. 1840-1951).