This group is in biscuit, or unglazed porcelain, shows the figure of Bacchus, or Dionysus in Greek mythology - the god of wine and revelry, and his bride Arianna.
This representation is part of the eighteenth-century genre of artistic production inspired by antiquity and in ceramics reached its culmination in biscuit, a material that in the eighteenth century, due to its whiteness, was considered as close to the ideal purity of classical antiquity.
One of the greatest interpreters of this technique was Filippo Tagliolini (1754-1809), chief modeller for Ferdinando IV (1771-1806) in his Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea at the end of the eighteenth century.
They produced a soft paste made of different materials with a typical milky colour. yellowed and affected by age. A large part was missing the cylindrical shaped base as well.
Bacchus is holding a bunch of grapes in his hand, but his arm had been yellowed and affected by age. A large part was missing the cylindrical shaped base as well.
To avoid arbitrary reconstruction, it was decided that only the arm would be restored. The restoration is reversible and ensures the best aesthetic impact, as desired by the client.
After removing the residue of the old restoration, cleaning the surfaces of the breakage with the help of a scalpel and swabs steeped in ketone solvent, the fragments were bonded together with epoxy resins, the join points were filled with epoxy plaster. We respect the principles of reversibility so a protective film was applied to the contact surfaces to enable the bonding to be undone without causing harm. Lastly it was retouched with earth pigments and acrylic paints