CAST BY MASULLI, NAPELS, 19TH CENTURY

The celebrated Fonderia Chiurazzi, one of Naple's leading makers of replicas of antique works, was originally established in the 19th century by Pietro Masulli, the famous Neapolitan sculptor who first put into practice the idea of copying the ancient works of art in high quality, using the methods of Cellini. Masulli founded an art school in the Reale Ospizio dell' Albergo dei Poveri, situated in Naples, Piazza Carlo III, and through his hard work succeeded in endowing Naples with two permanent galleries for ancient art, the first in the Galleria Principe di Napoli, the second in Piazza dei Martiri.
The works thus reproduced rapidly achieved popularity in Italy and abroad. After Masulli's death, his pupil Gennaro Chiurazzi re-established the disbanded foundry under a new name and in a new location in 1870. The foundry amassed a renowned gallery of plaster casts after the antique.