Deux très rares tasses et sous-tasses de Capodimonte, circa 1750

Two very rare Capodimonte cups and saucers, circa 1750
Decorated with elaborate polychrome scrollwork and butterflies, the saucers with a similar decoration, each scrollwork element alternated with a polychrome butterfly, fleur de lys in blue enamel to each piece, (replaced metal handles) (4)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Italian Private Collection

The print sources for these butterflies likely go back to Josef Hoefnagel's 'Insects Diversae Insectarum Volatilium', published in 1630, the scrollwork perhaps to prints after Pillement. Angela Caròla-Perrotti (1986) succesfully argues that the source prints, rather than arriving at the Capodimonte factory as named concise albums, may have arrived in sets more similar to 'The Ladies Amusement', which included various prints after - amongst others - Pillement, Watteau and Piazetta, a theory to which end she was able to find several parallels. The Capodimonte factory, unlike Doccia, was only sparsely influenced by topography and naturalia from outside the Neapolitan realm. Several butterflies on these cups and saucers seem to be, at least in part, inventions unique to the Capodimonte factory.