Description

These porcelain U-shaped bottle coolers have two gilded masks on the lips, perforated so a handle might be fastened to them, and stand on three feet, also gilded, in the shape of winged busts. They are painted with views of the Gulf of Posillipo, of the bay of Naples, of the Royal Palace of Caserta, and a marina with Mount Vesuvius in the background.
They are elements of the Views of the Kingdom Set, the most beautiful and valuable of all Capodimonte porcelain sets, originally made up of over 400 pieces. It is also known as the “Goose” set, because the handles of the soup tureens depict a young boy holding a goose, on the model of a Roman statue in the Capitoline Museums in Rome (also a copy, of a Hellenic original). The set was produced in Naples, at the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, between 1793 and 1795.