Miniature Ferdinand IV Bourbon Two Sicilies
Rare gold-mounted tortoiseshell snuffbox with vertical opening, on the lid is mounted a large and very fine oval miniature on ivory, depicting a frontal portrait of Ferdinand I/III/IV of Bourbon Two Sicilies with a blue jacket and two decorations on the right, within a rich chiseled frame with floral motifs.
Miniaturist of the Neapolitan school, attributable to Giuseppe Tresca (active between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century).
Dimensions of the snuffbox 8 x 6 x 2 cm - the miniature 4.2 x 3.6 cm
Excellent conditions commensurate with age and use.
Giuseppe Tresca (Naples? -Palermo 1816) Giuseppe Tresca was a painter of religious subjects, miniature portraitist and engraver. He was a prolific illstrator of the Bourbon court; many of his miniatures are preserved in the royal collections of dynasties related to the family, such as the Habsburgs (Vienna, Hofburg). See Schidlof (La miniature en Europe, Graz 1964, II, p. 846), AA.VV., Galanterie. Objects of luxury and pleasure in Europe between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, exhibition catalog, Naples 1997, pp. 155, 211. His portraits are characterized by a fine execution, even if his style varies, according to the requests of the client and the models (he can make use of pale colors and a poorly defined design).
Recently a small snuff-box with an agate cameo representing Ferdinand IV was sold at Chriestie’s London for about 26000$.
Sotheby’s Paris 15th December 2023 sale “Collection Hubert Guerrand-Hermès, Autour de la duchesse de Berry.”
This type of objects were usually gifted by the King to members of the court or foreign dignitaries. Ferdinand I (12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825), was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805. Ferdinand was the third son of King Charles VII of Naples and V of Sicily by his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his elder brother, Ferdinand VI, becoming King Charles III of Spain, but treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns. On 6 October, he abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son, because his eldest son Philip had been excluded from succession due to illnesses and his second son Charles was heir to the Spanish throne. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
