House & Garden 
An exquisite set of Capo 
Di Monte figurines de¬ 
picting the hours. From 
the collection of Mrs. 
Lydia Avery Coonley 
Ward 
CAPO DI MONTE PORCELAINS 
A Ware Thai Came Out of Naples for the Delectation 
of the Discerning Collector 
GARDNER TEALL 
S HOULD you chance upon Lady 
Blessington’s “Idler in Italy” 
—few there are, nowadays who 
bother to look into these old-fash¬ 
ioned travel books of the early 19th 
Century—you will find there this 
note of that remarkable lady’s visit 
to the Palace of Portici, built by 
Charles III of Naples in 1738, on 
the highroad to Salerno, some five 
miles beyond the gates of the 
Neapolitan metropolis: 
The Salon in Portici 
“One of the salons at Portici pe¬ 
culiarly attracted our attention. 
The ceiling and walls were covered 
with panels of the most beautiful 
china of the ancient and celebrated 
manufactory of Capo di Monte, of 
which specimens are now become 
rare. The panels have landscapes 
and groups finely painted and are 
bordered with wreaths of flowers of the size of 
nature of the richest and most varied dyes, in 
alto relievo, among which birds of the gayest 
plumage, squirrels, and monkeys, all of china, 
are mingled. The chandeliers and frames of 
the mirrors are also of porcelain, and the effect 
is singularly beautiful. The floor was former¬ 
ly covered in a similar style to the panels on 
the walls, but the King when obliged to fly 
from Naples intended, it is said, to remove the 
decoration from this chamber, and had only 
detached those of the floor wlien he was com¬ 
pelled to depart.” 
Revolution and alto relievo, tempests in tea¬ 
pots, bulls in china shops, squirrels and mon¬ 
keys in porcelain— 
what a picture the 
Countess of Blessing- 
ton’s description pre¬ 
sents for the imagina¬ 
tion to work upon! I 
do not for the mo¬ 
ment recall whether 
the indefatigable and 
disconcerting Tauch- 
nitz was responsible 
for reviving in yel¬ 
low-jacket the “Idler 
in Italy” or whether a 
copy of the old book 
in its first, and per¬ 
haps only edition, was 
the one which fell into my hands 
one rainy day when walking 
abroad in Naples seemed too much 
like assuming the skilfulness of 
Neptune and torrents washed down 
the hillside strada of the Parco 
Margherita just below my window. 
A Porcelain of Naples 
I am not a capricious person, 
but the paragraph I have just 
quoted suddenly revived an early 
interest in the old porcelain of 
Naples, that which bears the name 
of Capo di Monte. Years before, 
when a small boy, someone had 
given me a little cup bearing un¬ 
derneath the mark of the capital 
letter N with crown above. The 
nefarious fraud which accompanied 
this gift was the solemn assurance 
on the part of the giver—she was 
another boy’s Sunday-school teach¬ 
er—that the N stood for Napoleon and the 
Crown for Emperor. Indeed, I was shame¬ 
lessly assured that the great Napoleon himself 
had drunk from this cup himself (lethe or 
nepenthe was not designated), perhaps even the 
Empress Josephine and, later, Maria Louisa 
had done likewise. I was even led to believe 
that the King of Rome had, in his weaning 
days, been fed from this very cup. Alas! a 
terrible thing happened. After only a week’s 
possession of so holy a relic, a Knowing One 
appeared and bluntly dissipated the romance. 
“It is Capo di Monte, a very decent bit, but 
Napoleon had nothing to do with it, young 
man, and whoever told you that yarn is as 
stupid as those who 
stuff children with fairy 
stories.” That was all. 
I hated the Knowing 
One from that moment, 
for I loved and under¬ 
stood fairy stories. For 
the Other Boy’s Sun¬ 
day School Teacher I 
naturally lost regard. 
It was not, I argued, 
that she didn’t know it 
was Capo di Monte, 
but that she should 
have pretended she 
knew it was the Em¬ 
peror Napoleon’s! 
Three oval dishes or platters of Capo di Monte. From 
the collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Cn both sides of this tea pot are land¬ 
scapes of great beauty, banded in gold 
There is great beauty in the figure decorations of these Capo 
di Monte pieces. The gold makes a worthy frame for them 
