Domenico Brucciani and the Formatori of 19th-Century Britain

Domenico Brucciani was a nineteenth-century British plasterer who used public exhibitions, emerging museum culture, and national art education to monopolize the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture. He built a network of fellow Italian emigres and collaborated with other makers of facsimiles to bring sculpture into learning and leisure spaces for a broad public. His plaster casts survive in collections from North America to New Zealand, and his practice was significant to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 22 February 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Domenico Brucciani, a prominent figure in nineteenth-century Britain's plaster cast industry, hailed from the Tuscan province of Lucca in 1815. This groundbreaking study explores his remarkable journey, revealing how he and his business capitalized on public exhibitions, emerging museum culture, and the nationalization of art education to establish a dominant monopoly in the market for reproductions of classical and contemporary sculpture.

Located in Covent Garden, London, Brucciani established a network of fellow Italian émigré formatori, fostering collaborations with other manufacturers of facsimiles such as Elkington, the electrotype manufacturers, Copeland, the makers of Parian ware, and Benjamin Cheverton, renowned for his sculpture-reducing machine. Through these partnerships, Brucciani brought sculpture into the realms of learning and leisure, reaching a broad and diverse public audience.

Brucciani's plaster casts, while found in collections across North America and New Zealand, showcase the extraordinary breadth of his artistic practice. He created death masks of renowned figures, pioneered the casting of anatomical, botanical, and fossil specimens, and adorned dance halls and theatres throughout Britain with his intricate decorations. This study, through meticulous research and the utilization of nineteenth-century periodical press and dispersed archival sources, establishes the profound significance of Brucciani's sculptural practice to the visual and material cultures of Victorian Britain and beyond.

Weight: 590g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350435780