The equestrian monument to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, erected in Piazza San Carlo, Turin, in 1838 is regarded as Carlo Marochetti’s masterpiece and one of the loftiest works of 19th-century romantic sculpture. It was precisely this work that revealed the young sculptor’s skill and talent to the general public and played a crucial part in making him known and esteemed throughout Europe. 

Charles Albert of Savoy commissioned Marochetti to produce the work in October 1831, a few months after becoming king of Sardinia. The subject of this dynastic self-celebration is one of the most emblematic figures in the history of Savoy, namely Emanuele Filiberto, known as Testa di Ferro or “Iron Head” (1528-80), the Duke of Savoy who won back the territories occupied by Henry II of France and decided to move his capital from Chambery to Turin (1563), hailed as the “true founder of the Piedmontese monarchy”.¹ 

Having rejected an initial design (known from a plaster model in the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin), the sovereign approved Marochetti’s dynamic but well-balanced vision of the victor of the Battle of Saint-Quentin (1557) theatrically sheathing his sword while halting his fiery steed. Due to the opposition and hostility of the Turin Academy, the actual creation of the work took seven years. In the meantime, major alterations were made to the pedestal, which was not completed until 1839.² The equestrian statue, cast in bronze by Soyer et Ingé in Paris, was instead finished early in 1838 and displayed for about two months, between the end of March and the beginning of June, in the main courtyard of the Louvre to great acclaim. It was then shipped to Turin and unveiled on 4 November, the king’s name day. 

The statue’s success in Paris spawned a flourishing market for small-sized copies mass-produced in bronze, plaster and other materials to meet a wide range of decorative demands. As G. Guénot-Lecointe wrote in 1840, “our mantelpieces, shelves and clocks were all embellished with the warrior on horseback”. The situation, in fact, got out of control. Well aware of the quality of his work, Marochetti had been the first to promote it through the sale of small-sized replicas. As early as March 1839, however, faced with the problem of fakes, he took legal action in a case that marked a chapter in the law on artistic copyright. As pointed out by C. Hedengren-Dillon in an excellent article in La Tribune de l’Art,³ the records of the trial show that even before exhibiting the statue, he had already entered into an agreement with Louis Jeannest for the reproduction of a “petit modèle”, probably produced with the aid of a pantograph, and delivered various specimens to the marchands de nouveautés Susse et Giroux in 1838. The following year, the statuette of Emmanuel Philibert, available in a range of sizes, was being marketed by three different producers of artistic bronzes, namely Soyer et Ingé, Susse Frères and De Braux d’Anglure, the only one to offer two versions, one of 41.2 centimetres in height and the other 82.5 centimetres. The latter measurements are therefore almost identical to those of the splendid plaster version in the Cerruti Collection and the one in the Louvre, which is probably the signed model consigned by Marochetti himself to De Braux in 1840 together with the rights of reproduction. While the Cerruti statuette is unsigned, it displays great care in terms of execution and the characteristics of the surface, the bronze-coloured finish and the insertion of a metal chain between the reins and the bit suggest an original model rather than a commercial copy. This hypothesis is indeed borne out by an expert appraisal of the Galerie Patrice Bellanger, dated 28 September 1992 and found in the Cerruti Collection Archives. This attests to the authenticity of the work, which was still in the possession of the Galerie Perrin, Paris, at the time. A “model of extraordinary merit” - possibly the one mentioned by Pietro Baldassarre Ferrero in a letter to Paolo Toschi⁴ - was exhibited in Turin in 1838.⁵ 

Monica Tomiato 

¹ Botta 1841, p. 39, quoted in S. Cavicchioli, “Scolpire il principe. Carlo Marochetti e l’identità nazionale nell’Europa dell’Ottocento”, in Castello, Belligni 2016, pp. 138-139.

² For a detailed reconstruction, see Bollea 1933.

³ Hedengren-Dillon 2014, accessible online at https://www.latribunedelart.com/l-emmanuel-philibert-de-marochetti-histoire-d-une-reduction.

⁴ Parma, Museo Glauco Lombardi, Archivio Toschi, cart. 49, fasc. 20, 26 December 1837.

⁵ Turin 1838, p. 74, no. 342; Della Chiesa di Benevello 1838, p. 41.