The ‘Grand Tour’

The 'Grand Tour' was an essential aspect of the education of young noblemen during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Their premier destination was Italy where they would educate themselves in the politics, culture and art of the country, whose ancient and Renaissance art awaited their discovery and purchase. These young men were attracted by the heritage of the ancient Roman monuments, particularly those still half buried in the Roman forum. Objects such as this carving would have been acquired by these grand tourists and connoisseurs as reminders of their travels. Their recreation as miniature ruins survive as a testament to their value to a society obsessed by the ‘picturesque’.

Domenico Padiglione (1756-1832): Domenico Padiglione was employed as the official model maker of the Royal Museum in Naples in 1806, using cork as his chief material as it was pliable and easy to carve. He worked to produce models to form a ‘Gallery of Models of Ancient Monuments’ in the Naples Museum and his models remained on view until the 1840s. Padiglione worked with his sons Agostino and Felice, but the family did not sign their work. Padiglione also led the Cork Model Workshop at the Museo Borbonico for more than twenty years The Workshop was open between 1777-1859 and is now known as Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Padiglione’s workshops made copies for private sale to Grand Tourists such as the Berkeley family, whose surname is featured on the underside of this model of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum, despite the fact that his contract with the Museum forbade him from doing so. The model in Sir John Soane’s collection was probably made in the 1820s. The original inventories of the Soane Museum collection state that it was acquired from his pupil, John Sanders, circa 1826.

A large number of late 18th century and early 19th century collectors owned a number of these expensive cork models. This model was in the private museum at Spetchley. There were cork models at Attingham Park, a house which Robert Berkeley visited in August 1823 before Lord Berwick’s collection was sold, some of which were purchased by Sir John Soane. Berkeley would have been familiar with these and other examples.

For a long time, architectural models have been used for resolving structural problems; for presentation, as three-dimensional records; and for decoration. Such models were often used in the 18th and 19th centuries by architects such as Sir John Soane, to enable their students and clerks to examine a building's design without having to travel abroad. Soane considered architectural models vital for teaching, often using them to illustrate his lectures at the Royal Academy, showing the great monuments of the classical past, and to explain his architectural designs. He also used models to convince clients of the value of a design and to help him to understand structural problems. Soane accumulated a collection of miniature buildings made out of cork which were housed in ‘The Model Room’ of the Soane Museum, enabling his students to take an ‘alternative Grand Tour’. He saw these models as essential in understanding the different modes of construction, the materials, colouring and form. Despite Sir John Soane’s initial, negative reaction to the temples at Paestum, he began to incorporate the early Greek Doric order which he saw there into his designs as early as 1779.

Paestum: Paestum was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Magna Graecia, 60 miles south of modern Naples. After its foundation by Greek colonists under the name of ‘Poseidonia’ (Ancient Greek: Ποσειδωνία) it was eventually conquered by the Lucanians and later the Romans. The Lucanians renamed it ‘Paistos’ and the Romans gave the city its current name, ‘Paestum’. The ruins of Paestum are notable for their three ancient Greek temples which are some of the best preserved in the world. These three temples are in the Doric order, dating from the first half of the 6th century BC. They were dedicated to Hera and Poseidon, although they have traditionally been identified as a basilica and temples of Neptune and Ceres, owing to incorrect attributions in the 18th century. This model represents the second Temple of Hera, which was constructed around 460–450 BC, but which had been assigned as a temple dedicated to Poseidon. It was discovered that the temple was used to worship Zeus and another unknown god, in addition to Hera. On the east side of the temple, the remains of two altars are visible, one large and one smaller. The smaller one is a Roman addition. It is possible that the temple was originally dedicated to both Hera and Poseidon; and some of the offertory statues around the larger altar are thought to have led to this affiliation.

Cork Models: The use of cork for creating models of ancient structures became popular in the sixteenth century, as the texture of the material bears resemblance to weathered stone. In the eighteenth century, the production of cork models was a flourishing craft that developed in Rome and Naples in response to demand from travellers. ‘Bearing Rome across the Alps...’ was a phrase coined when explorers returning from Italy brought back beautiful, expensive models of ancient Italian architecture recreated in cork as souvenirs. Cork models became souvenirs and objects of study in Rome at the beginning of the classicist period in architecture. This was coupled with a modern study of classical antiquity and a growing interest in the ancient world amongst educated Europeans, who pilgrimaged on the ‘Grand Tour’. Around 1800, cork from cork oaks in Southern Europe was a material which was used frequently. To make this cork suitable for creating models, the curved cork boards had to be flattened for a long time in presses, before they could be shaped using a variety of sharp tools. Cork, being pliable and porous, was the ideal material for optically portraying the stonework of ancient buildings and, being light, was therefore easily transported. Precision was important, as was the correct scale and the proper appearance. Such models were also popular with the public in London, who flocked to see exhibitions of celebrated structures from around the world in miniature form.

Augusto Rosa (1738-1784), a Roman architect who earned himself an extra income producing models of a wide variety of ruins in and around Rome in 1780, is considered the inventor of exact architectural modelling in cork. The origin of the name ‘Phelloplastik’ (from the Greek: φελλός ‘phello’ = cork) is debated, but was possibly given to the art of ‘Korkbildnerei’ by Franz Oberthür, a theology professor from Würzburg, when he visited Rosa during a trip to Italy; or by Karl August Böttiger (1760 –1835) in circa 1800. Whereas ‘Korkbildnerei’ is considered to go back at least until the sixteenth century, ‘Phelloplastik’ began with Augusto Rosa and is ascribed to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Makers such as Giovanni Altieri (1767-90), and Domenico Padiglione and his sons, ran workshops producing models, often from measured drawings. But models were also popular with the public in London, who flocked to see exhibitions of celebrated structures from around the world in miniature form. Other key manufacturers of this modelling practice of sculpting in cork were the Italian Antonio Chichi (1743-1816) and the German Carl May (1747-1822).