“I hate the stuff,” I overheard the man say to his friend. I was across a table from them in a large open-air shelter in the side yard of the auction house. We were all looking through the detritus of other people’s lives for something of value to bid on in the next day’s auction.
Other people’s stuff was tightly packed in boxes or lying unkempt atop rows and rows of tables.
“I was in Italy where it was made,” he added. I looked up and recognized the man’s friend in his trademark hat (which on any given auction day would have his number tucked in the brim). The friend – a buyer for a charity thrift store in New Jersey – was a frequent auction-goer and we knew each other.
The auction-goer acknowledged my presence. He replied emotionlessly that he liked the stuff, which I had seen and learned about for the first time a few weeks ago at an auction house right next door. It’s called Capodimonte porcelain, and it’s made in Naples, Italy.
I had to agree with the man, but not so severely. I found the glazed pieces to be a bit gaudy, including the porcelain flower bouquet that had elicited his sentiment.
I don’t really hate it, the friend said, realizing perhaps that he’d been a little too strident. It was merely a bowl of porcelain flowers, not something to get worked up over.
The auction-goer mentioned that he had some Capodimonte clowns that he had bought about 20 years ago. He bought them, he said in answer to my question of why, because he loved clowns. I remembered that he had won a bid on some oversized clowns at auction some months ago.
The Capodimonte bouquet was a rainbow of colored flowers with sharp chiseled edges. Most of the time, the auction-goer noted, the pieces are chipped. And dust gets into the cracks of the flowers, the friend offered. People don’t know how to take care of it, the auction-goer replied.
That was the same thing another auction-goer had said to me when I first encountered Capodimonte pieces at the other auction house. I had seen them on the website. There were so many pieces that I knew I had to seek them out when I arrived at the auction.
I didn’t have to look very hard because they had been arranged on the top level of one of the tables, eating up every bit of the space. There must have been about 25 or more pieces, from one that looked like an Easter egg to a large wishing well to several bouquets of flowers. The flowers were bas relief in beige vases with a dark brown tint, but there were a few in white vases along with a large pink jardinière.
This auction-goer, another regular, approached me as I stood there taking in the breadth of them and puzzling over why someone would want so many. He has relatives in Italy, he said, and when he visits, he brings pieces back with him.
“It’s done in Naples, by hand,” he said, “even the American pieces.”
This is what he also told me about Capodimonte, which I wasn’t able to verify:
The beige pieces, which included most of the ones on the table, were made for the U.S market. The white pieces were made for the European market, for French, Spanish and Italian buyers. The white, he said, was more meticulously made. On the table was a white egg-shaped piece that carried a blue Capodimonte stamp with a crown and the letter “N” on the back.
Some pieces for the American market, he said, had a commercial look; they looked sprayed.
“Look for cracks around the flowers,” he advised. The stuff “is usually cracked.” He was certain that if I looked closely enough, I could spot chips on the edges of some of the flowers.
That wouldn’t be surprising; rarely do I find porcelain or glass items at auction that are not chipped. Even if it wasn’t chipped inside someone’s home, it would be by the time the item made it to the auction table. It’s tough to keep such delicate items flawless.
With the little knowledge I had obtained from the auction-goer, I went searching myself for more about Capodimonte.
Capodimonte is mostly about flowers; many of the pieces at auction were roses. They seem to adorn all manner of items, including horses, clocks, elephants, planters. I also found pieces with people and fruit as the adornment, along with other designs, including lamps with African American figures.
The porcelain was first made in Naples during the early 18th century. It grew out of the marriage of Charles VII of Naples and Sicily to Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, whose grandfather founded the well-known Meissen porcelain factory. Charles loved Meissen wares so much that he wanted to create comparable porcelain beauties in his own country. So he opened a factory on a hill to produce what was called Capodimonte.
Skilled artisans created the pieces, which originally included plates, vases, large bowls, tea and coffee cups, teapots, snuff boxes and walking stick handles. Those were followed by flowers, which were created because Charles’ allergies would not allow him to be among the real thing in nature.
The factory moved to Madrid, Spain, in the late 18th century when Charles became king there, and he took the molds with him to use in a new factory. Meanwhile, his son the new king opened a factory in Naples.
Both factories seemed to have closed in the early 19th century. Capodimonte-style porcelain is still being made by various companies, and some is marked with the early logo of a crown and the letter “N.”
If you are interested in buying Capodimonte porcelain, here are some pointers on what to look for. Here’s what to look for in the markings.
