Historic carpets return from the storerooms of the Royal Palace of Naples

Thanks to an agreement with The Conservation and Restoration Center "La Venaria Reale," at the Royal Palace of Naples, objects stored in the rooms of theHistoric Apartment are being catalogued. Seventeen carpets kept in the storage rooms have been opened in these days in order to assess their state of preservation, possible restoration to be carried out and the possibility of their relocation in the rooms of the Royal Apartment.

These include the first of ninety-three carpets commissioned by Louis XIV for the Louvre’s Grand Galerie, executed between 1668 and 1688 by the Manufacture de la Savonnerie and made from cartoon by Charles Le Brun, entitled The Four Parts of the World. In the 1880s this carpet was used by Louis XVI in the Dining Room of the Château de Fontainebleau; it was then moved in 1812 to Rome to the Quirinal Palace, chosen as Napoleon’s palace. Shortly after 1814 Joachim Murat brought it to the Royal Palace in Naples along with other works and furnishings. While awaiting restoration, it is on display inside the Hall of the Body Guards: the room is not accessible to the public but the carpet can be admired by looking out from the adjacent rooms.

The extensive project, entrusted to the Center of La Venaria Reale, involves the conservation filing of the exhibits, paintings, furniture, and furnishings kept in the Historic Apartment and in the storerooms. Following the reconnaissance of the state of the objects, an estimate will be made for the restoration, which will be entrusted through a public tender, at the beginning of next year, initially affecting four rooms: the Dining Room of the Diplomatic Corps adjacent to the Court Theater, the Throne Room, the Ambassadors’ Gallery and the Hall of Hercules.

“The restoration and refurbishment of the Historical Apartment is one of the key interventions of the Strategic Plan ’Great Cultural Heritage Projects,’ under which the Ministry of Culture has allocated 23 million euros in funding to the Royal Palace of Naples,” said director Mario Epifani. “For the time being, we have decided to focus on four of the main rooms of the tour route, with the aim of restoring an arrangement as faithful as possible to the one documented when the Palace was still inhabited by the royal family. Visitors will thus be able to better appreciate the preciousness of the furnishings and works of art preserved in the Apartment and relive the splendor of a royal palace.”

The aim is to reconstruct a philological path by setting the reference date of 1907, the year in which the last inventory of the palace as a royal residence was drawn up. The Centro de La Venaria Reale is working with a highly specialized team in all areas (textiles, metals, wooden furnishings, etc.) and will conclude the work in January, with the collaboration of the Royal Palace restorers, Ugo Varriale with Francesca De Martino and art historian Alessandra Cosmi.

Historic carpets return from the storerooms of the Royal Palace of Naples

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