The little prince of the Royal Palace of Caserta is now on display in the Royal Apartments

The marble portrait of little Charles Titus of Bourbon-Naples, the eldest son of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and his wife Maria Carolina of Austria, created by Giuseppe Sammartino and discovered in the storerooms of the Bourbon residence in early 2021, is now on display in the Royal Apartments of the Royal Palace of Caserta.

On the occasion of his birthday, the sculpture of little Charles Titus finds a place in the room that, although it did not see him born, housed the wedding bed of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria. The statue, made of alabaster marble, depicts the Real Infante, the couple’s firstborn male child; the little prince was born on a harsh winter’s day on Jan. 4, 1775, in the Royal Old Palace of Caserta, “whitened by copious snow.” To celebrate royal births, an official portrait of the Infante was being made. Queen Maria Carolina, as a vow of grace for having begotten the male heir, wanted to consecrate the effigy of the Crown Prince to St. Francis of Paola, to whom she was particularly devoted, entrusting the execution of the portrait to the first sculptor of the Kingdom of Naples, Giuseppe Sammartino, author of the Veiled Christ in the Sansevero Chapel. The life-size portrait was then translated into silver.

The marble sculpture, after the exhibition The Little Prince. Giuseppe Sammartino at the Royal Palace of Caserta held in the Palatine Chapel from May 27 to Sept. 11, 2022, can now be seen in the Bedroom of their Majesties, also known as the Bedroom of Ferdinand II, in the palace’s 18th-century wing.

The place chosen for the location of the Prince’s portrait is not accidental. Charles Titus is now in the bedroom that was his parents’, and next to him stands Girolamo Pompeo Batoni’s painting, theAllegory of the Death of the Two Children of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina. The heir to the throne to whom the hopes of the Kingdom had been entrusted was, in fact, short-lived. He died in 1778, at the age of almost 4, in Caserta itself, in the Casino Vecchio of San Leucio. To commemorate his death and that of the younger Princess Marianne, Queen Maria Carolina, the “inconsolable mother,” commissioned their depiction from one of the best-known and most sought-after artists of the 18th century, Pompeo Batoni. In the painting, full of quotations from Raphael to Correggio, the delicate princess is depicted as, supported by an angel, she reaches her brother in heaven. Against the backdrop of the Gulf of Naples, with Vesuvius erupting, the maiden is held in vain by the Earth, while the personification of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies mourns her loss.

Pictured is Giuseppe Sammartino’s Real Infante (detail). Photo Pedicini

The little prince of the Royal Palace of Caserta is now on display in the Royal Apartments

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