With a removable roof housing grave goods and a skeleton.

Comparators: A comparable, larger version of the ‘Model of The Nola Tomb’ (http://collections.soane.org/object-m1078) attributed to Domenico Padiglione, can be found in Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. The Soane Museum’s website explains that such models ‘have traditionally been described as replicating Etruscan sepulchres. In reality, they are loosely based on tombs of the pre-Roman Italic peoples that inhabited parts of Italy who came under the strong cultural influence of Greek colonies in southern Italy’ (http://collections.soane.org/object-m1078). The website notes that the ‘Model of The Nola Tomb’ is based on the frontispiece to J.H.W. Tischbein’s 1791 publication of Sir William Hamilton’s vase collection (1730-1803) which depicts Sir William and Lady Hamilton standing beside an open tomb at Nola admiring newly discovered vases. This engraving is by Antoine Cléner after a lost drawing by Christoph Heinrich Kniep. The miniature vases within the model of the tomb replicate those from Sir William and Lady Hamilton’s vase collection.
The ‘Model of The Nola Tomb’ is recorded by Soane in his 1830 ‘Description’. The model was on display in Soane’s Basement Ante Room at that time but had previously belonged to Lord Berwick. The model was Lot 70 at the sale of the effects of Lord Berwick at Attingham Park, Shropshire in 1827: ‘A cork Model of an ancient Etruscan Tomb, exhibiting the interior with the skeleton, and vases round it, 3 feet long’. In the annotated copy of the sale catalogue, which is in Soane’s collection, his agent, William Watson, made a marginal annotation: ‘£2 x 14 WW’ [paid £2.0.14 William Watson] (http://collections.soane.org/object-m1078).

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.

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.

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).