Capodimonte porcelain Capodimonte porcelain Capodimonte porcelain (sometimes "Capo di Monte") is porcelain created by the Capodimonte porcelain manufactory ("Real Fabbrica di Capodimonte"), which operated in Naples, Italy, between 1743 and 1759. Capodimonte is the most outstanding factory for early Italian porcelain, the Doccia porcelain of Florence being the other main Italian factory. Capodimonte is most famous for its moulded figurines. The porcelain of Capodimonte, and later Naples, was a "superb" translucent soft-paste, "more beautiful" but much harder to fire than the German hard-pastes, or "a particularly clear, warm, white, covered with a mildly lustrous glaze". The Capodimonte mark was a fleur-de-lys in
Woodcarved beggars Woodcarved beggars Woodcarved Beggars originated as figures carved mostly in swiss pine, painted, or simply stained dark brown, generally from Gröden - Val Gardena in the Alps. In Val Gardena the carving industry began as early as at the beginning of the 17th century. The woodcarvers produced mainly statues for churches and religious figurines. The production of beggars started in the late 17th century. Beggars were part of the rich production from Gröden of figurines of genre art as the figurines representing the four seasons. In the baroque period (17th-18th century) the production of those figurines was very rich; Gröden