Filippo Pacetti

FILIPPO PACETTI (active in Rome from 1809-1857).
Empire oil lamp in the form of Eros. Italy, ca. 1810.
Silver and bronze gilt and blued in black.
Measurements: 41 cm (total figure); 43 cm (total).

Silver and gilt patinated silver and bronze oil lamp depicting adolescent Eros, holding an antique style lamp in the right hand and a silk lampshade in the left. Eros rests on a circular silver base adorned with two finely carved and chiseled birds. An arrow and bow, attributes of Eros or Cupid, are scattered on the same base. Its wings are made of finely chiseled gilt bronze: the details of the feathers and their barbs are visible, and the material is amethyzed, to give the wings a hairy appearance.

The silver base has three hallmarks: a title stamp, a guarantee stamp and a maker's mark. The first two, the title stamp and the guarantee stamp, are the stamps imposed by imperial decree of November 1, 1809 on the Papal States annexed in 1809 and, therefore, on Rome, decreed "imperial and free city". The third stamp is the mark of the silversmith Filippo Pacetti, active in Rome from 1809 to 1857. These three stamps inscribed on the silver base of this lamp date their origin from 1810, when the imperial guarantee stamps were imposed by decree in Rome, to 1814, when the stamps then in force in France ceased to be used in the conquered countries, after which the imperial stamps were replaced by pontifical stamps.

This type of oil lamp, depicting Eros or Cupid with arms raised and resting on one leg, seems to have been fashionable among Italian silversmiths in the late 19th century. There are examples of similar oil lamps attributed to Giovacchino Belli, a silversmith active in Rome at the same time, or to Pietro Paolo Spagna, also a Roman silversmith but later.

The figure of Eros is probably an imitation of Praxiteles' Eros type, also known as Eros Centocelle, not a child but an adolescent Eros, whose undulating body position suggests that he carried a bow and arrow, or some other attribute, in his hands. This Eros, missing arms, forearms and legs, identified by Visconti as the Cupid of Pario, or Eros of Parion cited by Pliny the Elder, was discovered in 1772 in Rome, in the area of Centocelle, by the painter Gavin Hamilton. In addition to this marble, now preserved in the Museo Pio Clementino, there are several (Furtwängler counted seven as early as 1893) ancient statues of Eros Praxiteles or Centocelle, including one called Eros Farnese, discovered in 1889 and preserved in the Louvre, with the right arm raised above the head and the left arm bent at chest level. He holds crowns in each hand, brought at the end of the 19th century. There is another marble of the Eros Praxiteles type in the Louvre: a Borghese Genius, discovered in 1594, which has one of the distinctive features of Eros Praxiteles type statues: sculpted or added wings on the back.

Sources:
-Adolf Furtwängler, Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik. Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Leipzig, 1893.
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, lib. XXXVI, trans. Bloch, Paris, 1961.
- Charles Oman, Italian Secular Silver, London, 1962.
- Walter van Dievoet, " Les poinçons d'argent en France et dans les pays conquis de la Révolution à le fin de l'Empire ", in Poinçons de garantie internationaux pour l'argent, Paris, 1995.
- Pierre Milza, Histoire de l'Italie, Paris, 2013.