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
The Beggars of Burgos The Beggars of Burgos The Beggars of Burgos ("Les mendiants de Burgos") is a painting by Gustave Doré, done in 1875. Painted using oil on canvas, it was sold in 2012 by Galerie Michel Descours. It shows a group of Castilian beggars clustered before a whitewashed wall as though they have assembled for a portrait. Most are dressed in tattered blankets, threadbare shawls, and disheveled clothing, though some wear colorful sashes and hats. A young mother, perhaps a recent widow, sits alone holding her infant. A crippled man lies in a small wooden wagon, his hands wrapped in leather or