Introducing the Firmian Collection
The Capodimonte Museum in Naples, Italy, is best known for its collection of Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings, but it also houses an impressive collection of works on paper. A large proportion of the museum’s prints and drawings consists of the Firmian Collection. Carlo Firmian (1716-1782) was an Austrian diplomat who served as Minister Plenipotentiary for the Austrian Habsburgs, first in Naples (1754-1758) and then in Milan (1758-1782). To cultivate the image of an educated and cultured diplomat, he amassed a large art collection, which included paintings, sculptures, furniture, books, and prints. After his death, his vast collection was put up for auction. In 1788, the prints and illustrated books were acquired by the Bourbon royal family in Naples. They had inherited the Farnese Collection decades before and were in the process of building the Reggia di Capodimonte to house their growing art collection. Eventually, the Firmian collection passed into the hands of the Savoy family. King Vittorio Emanuele II (1820-1878) gifted it to the Italian state in 1864. Included in this gift was a large mahogany cabinet, in which the collection is still preserved today.
Carlo Firmian’s collection is stored in a large nineteenth-century cabinet in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe
The Firmian Collection now consists of 123 albums of European prints and 103 richly-illustrated books. The bindings of these albums date to the Bourbon period, but the organization of the collection is original to Firmian. We know this because the collection’s 1782 auction catalogue, written by Carlo Bianconi (1732-1802), lists each album along with a summary of its contents. The first 97 print albums are organized alphabetically by artists or school, with just a few being thematic (animals, antiquities, seascapes, cityscapes). Five of the original albums are missing, while three were added by the Bourbons. The following 26 albums contain portraits organized by nationality and the title or profession of the sitter. To create cohesive albums, all but the largest prints were pasted onto sheets of paper. Any print larger than this standard paper size was folded. In total there are almost 12,500 individual prints. The illustrated books contain many more. Twenty-seven of the original illustrated books are missing, while the Bourbons added twenty of their own. Also added is an album with drawings by a variety of Italian masters, originally collected by Firmian and acquired by the Bourbon family in 1782.
Page from the 1782 auction catalogue listing the contents of several albums containing works by the Fiamminghi– that is, Dutch and Flemish artists
Current State of Scholarship and Future Plans
The Firmian collection has received little scholarly attention, with only two dedicated publications, both in Italian: Rossana Muzii Cavallo’s La Raccolta di stampe di Carlo Firmian nel Museo di Capodimonte (1984) and L’incisione italiana nella raccolta Firmian del Museo di Capodimonte (1996). Approximately half of the collection has been digitized and can be accessed via the Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali website. The Capodimonte Museum is poised to start a new digitization project, which will see the entire Firmian collection digitized. New high-resolution photographs will be taken of all the items in it. A key facet of the upcoming project is the improvement and expansion of the information provided about each print. The first items to be cataloged are the Dutch and Flemish prints, on which work has already started. The new object entries will be far more thorough than previous ones and will include references to the (new) Dutch and Flemish Hollstein catalogue numbers, where available. The cataloging efforts have already yielded interesting observations and discoveries, such as previously unrecorded states and copies. Among these are a pair of large portraits of the philosophers Harpocrates and Chilon, which are skilled copies after Jan Harmensz. Muller. Originally engraved in 1590, just nine years later they were copied by Raffaello Guidi and published in Rome by Giovanni Turpino.
A set of previously unrecorded engravings copied by Raffaello Guidi after originals by Jan Harmensz. Muller
Dutch and Flemish prints in the Firmian Collection
There are eight albums dedicated to specific Dutch and Flemish artists: Hendrick Goltzius (and school), Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens (2 vols.), Johannes Stradanus, David Teniers, Anthony van Dyck, and Maerten de Vos. There are five further albums entitled Fiamminghi, which contain prints by diverse Dutch and Flemish artists, organized more or less alphabetically. Together, these albums contain over 1,500 prints. Additional Dutch and Flemish prints are included in the thematic albums, among the portraits, and especially in the four albums entitled Paesi, with prints by diverse non-Italian artists. As a young man, Firmian had spent a year studying at the University of Leiden and this might partly explain his interest in Dutch and Flemish art. Moreover, the fame of certain individual artists as well as the importance of print publishers from the Low Countries meant that their works were included in all serious European print collections.
The Dutch and Flemish section consists mainly of prints from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with those by Lucas van Leyden being the oldest. Almost all are etchings and/or engravings. Also included are a few woodcuts – mostly sixteenth-century chiaroscuro. The modest number of eighteenth-century mezzotints are mainly reproductive prints. Firmian was skilled at attributing prints, including those that were unsigned. With very few exceptions, each album that is dedicated to a specific artist contains only works in which that artist was involved in its production. That said, no hierarchy is imposed within the albums between original, copy, and reproductive print: they are mixed together, sometimes even being pasted onto the same sheet. For example, the Lucas van Leyden album contains an original series of the Apostles which is interleaved with a copy of that very same series. This suggests that distinguishing the hand of the master may have provided part of the viewer’s enjoyment. Nonetheless, the albums dedicated to sixteenth-century artists overwhelmingly contain prints by the hand of the original artist; any copies included are largely contemporary.
In contrast, the albums featuring seventeenth-century artists are a combination of original prints by the artist and printed reproductions after their paintings, often dating from the eighteenth century. The Rembrandt album, for example, has 115 original works by the master and four by his student Ferdinand Bol. The remaining 65 prints are copies or reproductions of his paintings. The David Teniers album is an extreme example, as it only contains two prints published by Teniers himself; the remainder consists of eighteenth-century English and French reproductions of his paintings.
Two sheets from the Rembrandt album with sixteen original etchings by Rembrandt. Exceptions are the portrait of a man wearing a hat at the top right by Ferdinand Bol, presumably included due to a misidentification, and beside it a copy after Rembrandt’s portrait of his mother.
The Fiamminghi albums contain a wide variety of etchings and engravings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Heavily featured are artists such as Johann Sadeler, Frans Floris, Philips Galle, Maerten van Heemskerck, Jacob Jordaens, Abraham Bloemaert, Boëtius Adamsz. Bolswert, and Nicolaes de Bruyn. The prints in the Paesi albums include works by Herman van Swanevelt and Nicolaes Berchem, and after Philips Wouwerman.
Firmian’s Collecting Method
Firmian’s approach to collecting seems to have favored quantity over quality, with many prints already in poor condition when they were pasted into the albums. Hardly any modern conservation work has been performed on the individual works, so that the condition of the prints still largely reflects the physical state in which they were acquired some 250 years ago. Prints that had suffered losses when Firmian acquired them have often been patched with fragments of others – generally selected carefully to blend in with the image. Some works have been reinforced with paper bearing printed texts or handwritten letters pasted onto the back. Occasionally we find holes that have been filled in with pen and ink, reconstructing missing lines. Some images bear handwritten annotations, reflecting a viewer’s active engagement. We also find entire prints, or occasionally isolated human figures, which have been squared, suggesting that someone was drawing copies. All these interventions appear to have been contemporary with Firmian, or possibly to have predated his ownership. Later additions are the numbers added to the bottom of most images, recording cataloging campaigns.
This Italian reverse copy of The Apotheosis of the Arts, originally by Jan Harmensz. Muller after a design by Bartholomeus Spranger, has been patched with a fragment of another print. The chosen fragment depicts foliage, enabling it to blend in with the surrounding trees.
How Firmian acquired his prints is not yet known, but there are indications that he may have bought up entire collections at a time. Unfortunately, there are almost no collection marks of previous owners – only one, that of Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758).[1] Firmian himself did not have a collection mark, making it virtually impossible to identify works that may have left his collection. A different clue to previous ownership may be the type of paper used as a backing sheet. Several sheets with authentic Rembrandt prints are of a different type of paper than those preferred by Firmian, suggesting that he may have bought up someone else’s collection of Rembrandt prints rather than acquiring each print individually.
This print by Johannes Saenredam bears two partial collection marks of Pope Benedict XIV
The Firmian collection has much to teach us about eighteenth century collecting practices. Research is still in its early stages, but there are plans to compile an academic publication on several aspects of the collection. A new visitor guide is also being written. It will replace the 1782 auction catalogue, which is still in use as the primary tool for navigating the collection.
Emma C. de Jong is American Friends of Capodimonte Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, 2023-2025, at Museo e Real Bosco Capodimonte in Naples. The Capodimonte Cabinet of Drawings and Prints can be visited Monday through Friday by appointment: mu-cap.docoparte@cultura.gov.it. For more information about the Dutch and Flemish works in the collection, please contact Emma C. de Jong: fellow@americanfriendsofcapodimonte.info.
[1] This collection mark is cataloged as L.2696 (Benoit XIV, pape): Frits Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins & d’estampes, online edition by the Fondation Custodia, consulted 16 May, 2024.