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(b Galicia [probably the region of Noya], 1704–11; d Madrid, Aug 25, 1775).

Spanish sculptor, teacher, critic and scholar. He was seminal in introducing the Neo-classical style to Spain and has been justly called the prototype of the academic artist (Bédat). The 14 years he spent in Italy (1733–47) studying ancient art and the work of such artists as Alessandro Algardi and Gianlorenzo Bernini were central to his career. De Castro’s earliest training was under Diego de Sande and then Miguel de Romay in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia). From 1724 to 1726 he worked in Lisbon, afterwards moving to Seville, where he entered the workshop of Pedro Duque Cornejo. He went to Rome in 1733, but no sculpture by de Castro is known to have survived from his stay in the city. He first joined Giuseppe Rusconi’s workshop and later that of Filippo della Valle. He also made contact with influential artists such as Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1739 he won first prize for sculpture at the Accademia di S Luca in Rome and as a result was given an annual allowance by ...

[Franc; Franz]

(b Görz [now Gorizia], Dec 4, 1755; d Vienna, Nov 17, 1828).

Slovenian painter. He was trained in Vienna (1775–9), at the Accademia in Bologna (1779–81) and in Rome (1781–7). Here he lived and worked with Josef Bergler and Felice Giani, among others, drawing nudes, motifs after antique, Etruscan and Egyptian sculptures, reliefs and objects after models including Raphael, Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, Guido Reni and Guercino. He also drew views in bistre of Rome and its outskirts (Ljubljana, N.G.; Vienna, Akad. Bild. Kst., Kupferstichkab.). He returned to Vienna and stayed there until 1791, when his patron Graf Philipp Cobenzl (1741–1810) sent him to Mantua to make plaster casts of antique sculptures and reliefs for the Akademie der Künste in Vienna. From 1791 to 1797 he was in Venice depicting Venetian views and antique motifs, in 1796 becoming both a member of the Accademia in Venice and an associate of the Akademie in Vienna, of which he was later a professor (...

(b Sermoneta, Aug 21, 1752; d Rome, Nov 18, 1795).

Italian painter. His youthful gifts were recognized by the Duke of Sermoneta, Francesco Caetani (1738–1810), who took Cavallucci to Rome in 1765. There he studied with Stefano Pozzi and, after 1768, with Gaetano Lapis. He also studied drawing at the Accademia di S Luca and was once thought to have been associated with the studios of Anton Raphael Mengs and Pompeo Batoni. Cavallucci’s earliest works include a tempera frieze in the Casa Cavallucci in Sermoneta (mid-1760s; see Röttgen, fig.) and figure and drapery studies (c. 1769–71; Rome, Gal. Accad. N. S Luca). His first known portrait, of Francesco Caetani, is preserved in an engraving of 1772 by Pietro Leone Bombelli (1737–1809). Three pictures from 1773—Abigail before David (Rome, Pal. Caetani), the Departure of Hector and Andromache (Rome, Gal. Accad. N. S Luca) and the Crucifixion with Saints (Rome, Pal. Corsini)—all demonstrate a tempered academic style, fluid plasticity and delicate manner. Cavallucci’s most distinguished work for the Caetani began in ...

(b Dijon, Nov 11, 1742; d Paris, March 27, 1814).

French architect. He studied architecture in Paris under Jacques-François Blondel and Julien-David Le Roy and travelled to Rome. He returned to Paris, making his reputation in the mid-1770s designing Neo-classical town houses. He met his stylish clientele through his contacts in Parisian café society and through freemasonry. He was a close acquaintance of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and wrote his biography. Among his works was the Hôtel Soubise (1780; destr. c. 1830) on the Rue de l’Arcade in Paris. It had a crisply defined exterior with a free-standing Roman Doric portico over the entrance. A variety of polygonal and curvilinear rooms with elegant classical details were fitted ingeniously into the building. His speculative building activities prevented his election to the Académie Royale d’Architecture, but he occupied a succession of official positions during the ancien régime, the Revolution and the Empire. For the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790...

(b Rome, July 4, 1751; d Paris, Jan 30, 1801).

Italian sculptor, active also in England and the USA. Ceracchi is best known for his portrait busts of the heroes of the American Revolution, executed during his two visits to the USA (1791–2 and 1794–5), where he made a significant contribution to the introduction of Neo-classicism. The son of a goldsmith, he studied in Rome with Tommaso Righi (1727–1802) and at the Accademia di S Luca. Following his arrival in London in 1773, Ceracchi worked for Agostino Carlini and modelled architectural ornament for Adam, Robert (ii). He also taught Anne Seymour Damer to model in clay, and c. 1777 he produced a life-size terracotta statue of her as the Muse of Sculpture (marble version, London, BM) holding one of her own works, a Genius of the Thames. His bust of Admiral Keppel (marble version, 1779; Mausoleum, Wentworth Woodhouse, S. Yorks) was considered ‘extremely like’ by Horace Walpole when the terracotta model (...

Italian family of gem-engravers and medallists. Giuseppe Cerbara (b Rome, 15 July 1770; d Rome, 6 April 1856) was the son of Giovanni Battista Cerbara (b Rome, 1748; d Rome, 1811) and was one of the best-known gem-engravers and medallists working in Rome in the 18th century and the early 19th. His artistic achievements brought him many honours: in 1812 he was elected Fellow of the Accademia di S Luca, in 1815 Fellow of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna and in 1825 Fellow of the Royal Academy of Fine Art of Antwerp. In 1831 he was elected to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi del Pantheon and in 1834 to the Accademia Fiorentina di Belle Arti. From 1822 he held the post of Incisore Camerale to the papal mint with Giuseppe Girometti; the artists were responsible for producing a medal on alternate years. Appointed Incisore Particolare dei Sommi Pontefici by ...

(b Valpiana, Oct 1, 1842; d Milan, May 25, 1907).

Italian architect and engineer. He studied in Pavia and then at the Politecnico in Turin, where he qualified as an engineer (1867). He also studied architecture under Camillo Boito at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan. Among his early designs were the classical octagonal marble fountain (1870), known as ‘La Bollente’, in the spa town of Acqui Terme, and buildings including the four entrance gateways at the Esposizione Italiana (1881), Milan, his first major project. His two most important works are completely dissimilar in style. The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale (1888–93; damaged 1943; restored) on the Corso Venezia, Milan, is in a powerful Romanesque and Gothic style with a hint of Moorish architecture and, though much influenced by the ideas of Camillo Boito, it also has close international parallels in style with other natural history museums, such as that in London (...

(b Paris, 1739; d Paris, Jan 20, 1811).

French architect. Although he was of humble origins, Chalgrin’s success as an architect was due in large part to conspicuous aristocratic patronage. As a young man he studied with Louis-Adam Loriot (fl 1737–69) and Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni until the latter’s death. He then became a pupil of Etienne-Louis Boullée, under whose guidance he participated in the student competitions at the Académie d’Architecture in Paris. In 1758 he received the Prix de Rome with a design for a small pavilion, and he left for Italy the following year. His correspondence from Italy with Jacques-Germain Soufflot indicates that he was already moving in the most advanced Neo-classical circles of his day, and soon after his return to Paris in 1763 he became Inspecteur des Travaux de la Ville de Paris under Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux. Chalgrin became a member of the Académie Royale d’Architecture in 1770 but was not elected to the first class until ...

(b Göteborg, Sweden, Feb 23, 1723; d London, March 8, 1796).

English architect and writer, of Scottish descent.

The son of a Scottish merchant trading in Sweden, Chambers was educated in Ripon, Yorkshire, and returned to Sweden at the age of 16 to train as a merchant in that country’s East India Company. Between 1740 and 1749 he made three voyages to the East, passing away the tedium of the journeys by studying ‘modern languages, mathematics and the fine arts, but chiefly civil architecture’. This background placed Chambers in a unique situation as far as his future career in England was concerned. By inclination he was a continental, and in 1749 he went to Paris, as any Swedish architect would have done, and sought instruction in architecture. He entered Jacques-François Blondel’s influential Ecole des Arts, a progressive educational body that trained the finest Parisian architects of the first generation of Neo-classicists. Late in 1750 Chambers moved on to Rome, where he set himself up as a privately funded student. There he seems to have maintained contacts with the Académie de France, and for a while he lived in the same studio as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who befriended those artists whose work was in the vanguard of Neo-classicism. Nevertheless, Chambers was too astute to ignore the visiting coteries of English travellers and ...

(b Paris, 1767; d Paris, Aug 3, 1849).

French painter. She was a pupil of François Gérard and Jacques-Louis David, and in 1788 she received a Prix d’Encouragement. She exhibited at the Salon from 1795 until 1819, when she received a gold medal. Like other female painters of her period, she specialized in sentimental genre scenes and portraits of women and children. Although she was considered by contemporary critics to be one of the finest portrait painters of the age, few works by her have been traced. One of the first known works is Scene of Family Life (1796; exh. Paris, Gal. Pardo, 1980), a genre scene closer to Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun than to David. Among her portraits shown in the Salon of 1801 may have been that of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (New York, Met.), previously attributed to David, showing a young girl drawing, posed against the sunlight. The painting reflects the influence of Gérard and is close in style to a portrait of ...

(b Lyon, March 4, 1787; d Lyon, Dec 29, 1883).

French architect and writer. He was taught in Lyon (c. 1802) by Claude-Pierre Durand and then went to Paris, where he joined the studio of the Lyon architect Bartelémy Vignon (1762–1846), for whom he worked intermittently in Paris between 1804 and 1816 and from whom he acquired a taste for Greek art. Chenavard was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1809. In 1816 he travelled to Italy, and after a short stay in Rome (April 1817) he spent the rest of the year on extensive travels (to Naples, Paestum, Calabria and Sicily) in the company of his friend, the architect Augustin Nicolas Caristie (1783–1862). Afterwards he returned to Rome for two years and studied the monuments of antiquity, made surveys and frequented French artistic circles. In August 1819, having returned to Lyon, he was appointed departmental architect for the Rhône and architect of the commune of Croix-Rousse (Rhône) and of the dioceses of Lyon and Belley (Ain). In ...

(b Paris, Dec 14, 1736; d Paris, Nov 13, 1809).

French architect. He began his architectural career as a draughtsman in the Bâtiments du Roi and studied at the private school of Jacques-François Blondel. In 1758 Cherpitel was awarded the Prix de Rome and travelled in Italy from 1759 to 1765, receiving praise for his drawings of ancient monuments.

Cherpitel’s first independent commissions were for clients outside Paris and included plans for a Vienna town house for Miklós (Jószef), Prince Esterházy. His success in Paris was assured by the patronage of Marie-Florent, Comte du Châtelet, whose family commissioned three Parisian town houses from Cherpitel: the Hôtel du Châtelet (1770; now the Ministère du Travail), the Hôtel de Damas (1776; now the Korean Embassy) and the Hôtel de Rochechouart (1776; altered, now the Ministère de l’Education). The Hôtel du Châtelet combined the newly fashionable Neo-classical style with traditional forms. Initially the massing recalls the town houses of the Regency (...

(b Lyon, Feb 12, 1756; d Lyon, June 20, 1813).

French sculptor. He was the son of a silk merchant and trained under the painter Donat Nonotte at the Ecole Royale de Dessin in Lyon. He then worked with the local sculptor Barthélemy Blaise (1738–1819). In 1772 he assisted Blaise with the restoration of the sculptures on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville. By 1780 he was working independently and received a commission from the canons of St Paul for chalk statues of St Paul, St Sacerdos and the Four Evangelists (all destr. 1793–4). He subsequently made stone statues of St Bruno and St John the Baptist (partially destr.) for the Charterhouse at Selignac, near Bourg-en-Bresse. In 1784, thanks to the patronage of the Lyonnais official Jean-Marie Delafont de Juis, Chinard was able to go to Rome, where he remained until 1787. There he studied the art of antiquity but seems not to have had any contact with Antonio Canova, the most influential Neo-classical sculptor in the city. In ...

(b Florence, 1727; d London, Dec 14, 1785).

Italian painter, draughtsman and designer, active in England.

Cipriani trained in Florence under the direction of the Anglo-Florentine artist Ignazio Enrico Hugford; in his early works he was also influenced by the Baroque style of Anton Domenico Gabbiani. His first commissions, for the organ screen in S Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence, and for two altarpieces in Pistoia (both now in S Bartolomeo), are undistinguished and tentative works that still show traces of the Baroque style. His modest Self-portrait (c. 1750; Florence, Uffizi) demonstrates Cipriani’s incipient ability as a draughtsman. In 1750 he went to Rome, where he came into contact with English artists on the Grand Tour. He became friendly with William Chambers and Joseph Wilton—proponents of a Neo-classical style of architecture and sculpture respectively. In 1755 Chambers and Wilton took him to London; he settled there, marrying an Englishwoman in 1761.

In London, Cipriani was immediately in demand as one of the first exponents of a developing Neo-classical decorative style. He was an instructor with Wilton at the Duke of Richmond’s gallery in Whitehall and a member of the St Martin’s Lane Academy. He was a founder-member of the Royal Academy, where he exhibited pictures and drawings, primarily of Classical and religious subjects, between ...

(b Paris, baptAug 28, 1721; d Auteuil, Jan 19, 1820).

French architect, archaeologist and painter. He was an important if controversial figure associated with the development of the Neo-classical style of architecture and interior design and its dissemination throughout Europe and the USA. He studied at the Académie Royale d’Architecture, Paris, under Germain Boffrand and won the Grand Prix in 1746. He spent the years 1749 to 1754 at the Académie Française in Rome but left after an argument with the director Charles-Joseph Natoire over his refusal to make his Easter Communion; this may have been due to his Jansenist sympathies. He nevertheless remained in Italy until 1767. During these years he became a close friend of Piranesi, Winckelmann, Cardinal Alessandro Albani and other members of the international circle interested in the Antique.

In his early student days in Rome, Clérisseau became acquainted in particular with English travellers and began to sell them his attractive topographical drawings of Roman architecture. Initially these were influenced by his studies with ...

(b c. 1715; d ?London, Aug 1778).

English cabinetmaker and upholsterer. Little is known about him before 1751, when he formed a partnership with William Vile, but it is assumed that he was the John Cobb apprenticed in 1729 to Timothy Money (fl 1724–59), a Norwich upholsterer. In 1755 he married Sukey, a daughter of the cabinetmaker Giles Grendey, and is said to have acquired a ‘singularly haughty character’, strutting ‘in full dress of the most superb and costly kind…through his workshops giving orders to his men’, and on one occasion earning a rebuke from George III. When Vile retired in 1764, Cobb carried on in business with the assistance of his foreman, Samuel Reynolds (fl 1751–85). He made furniture to very high standards and earned a reputation for exquisite marquetry: Hester Thrale, the writer and friend of Dr Johnson, compared the inlaid floors at Sceaux, France, to ‘the most high prized Cabinet which Mr Cobb can produce to captivate the Eyes of his Customers’. Inlay in tropical woods, particularly satinwood, was an important element of Neo-classical furniture. In ...

(b Foligno, July 23, 1739; d Rome, March 18, 1816).

Italian painter and decorator. Active in Umbria and the Lazio region, he worked initially in a Rococo language that revealed his links with the art of Rome in the first half of the 18th century, especially with Sebastiano Conca. Later he moved closer to the Neo-classical taste, always tempered by an exquisitely decorative flair. During his initial period of activity in Umbria, he produced the Virgin and Child with SS Peter and Paul (signed and dated 1775) at S Pietro in Foligno and decorated some rooms in the Palazzo Benedetti di Montevecchio (signed) and in the Palazzo Morelli at Spoleto (signed and dated 1773–5). After moving to Rome, where he was highly esteemed by Pope Pius VI, he produced decorations with grotesques and landscapes as well as biblical and mythological scenes in some of the most notable palaces of the city: at the Palazzo Chigi (1780–86; in collaboration with ...

(b London, April 27, 1788; d London, Sept 17, 1863).

English architect, son of Samuel Pepys Cockerell. One of the most talented classical architects of his generation in Britain, he was also important as an archaeologist and, as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy from 1840, as a teacher. His diaries reflect his refined intellect and fastidious temperament, while his numerous surviving drawings (London, V&A; RIBA and elsewhere) reveal him as one of the most sensitive draughtsmen in the history of British architecture. Closely in touch with scholars and architects abroad, especially in France and Germany, he was somewhat distanced from his contemporaries at home through his lack of enthusiasm for the Gothic Revival. Unlike his chief competitor, Charles Barry, he was not at ease in a profession increasingly dominated by commercial rivalry and might have been a more productive architect had he found a determined patron.

After an education at Westminster School, London, Cockerell first trained in his father’s office and then (...

(b Bergamo, July 12, 1804; d Rome, April 20, 1875).

Italian painter and teacher. From about 1816 to 1820 he studied with the Lombard Neo-classical painter Giuseppe Diotti at the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo, and in 1821 he went to Rome to study under Vincenzo Camuccini. Like his fellow pupils Francesco Podesti and Luigi Cochetti (1802–84), Coghetti combined a formal Neo-classical training with the influence of Tommaso Minardi and the Puristi. He acquired a studio in Rome in 1825, although he returned to Bergamo for his first commissions: Presentation of Christ at the Temple (1825; S Bartolomeo) and St Michael (1828; S Michele dell’Arco). These static compositions are relieved only by a bold use of colour (as also practised by Diotti). In Bergamo he also executed a grandiose portrait of Cardinal Nembrini (1831; Pal. Comunale). He became a member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome in 1834. Between 1837...

(b Valenza, Piedmont, 1775; d Milan, Dec 26, 1830).

Italian sculptor. He studied under Giuseppe Franchi (1731–1801) at the Accademia di Brera, Milan, and in Rome c. 1795–8 (possibly under Canova). He visited Grenoble, Paris and London (1799–1801) and was Professor of Sculpture at the Ateneo (Imperial Academy of Arts) in Turin from 1802 to 1814. He worked in various media: plaster, marble and terracotta. His greatest patron was Francesco Melzi-d’Eril (1753–1816), Vice-President of the Italian Republic, who commissioned busts of himself (1803–4) and the poets Giambattista Casti (1804) and Vittorio Alfieri (1806; all at Bellagio, Villa Melzi-d’Eril). During his sojourn in Carrara (1807–10), Princess Elisa Baciocchi ordered busts of herself (untraced), Napoleon (1809; Milan, Mus. Civ. Milano) and Prince Eugène de Beauharnais (1809; Malmaison, Château). Comolli’s monument of Peace, a seated allegorical figure, which was commissioned for Milan in 1810, was completed in ...