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
Capodimonte porcelain imported ancient Greek vases being recovered from Etruscan tombs, and then thought to be Etruscan art. From 1782 the director of the factory was Domenico Venuti, whose father Marcello Venuti was in charge of the royal collection of antiquities, then at the Palace of Portici. From the 1790s there was also a large production of figures in unglazed biscuit porcelain, which resembled marble. Many of these were rather loose copies of famous ancient sculptures, especially those in the rich royal collections, including portrait busts; the factory was allowed to borrow these to copy. A wall-painting of Achilles being taught to