Liverpool artwork of the day – Wednesday April 11 2007. ‘Geniuses representing the Pleasures of the Elysian Fields’ 1789 by Giuseppe Angelini (1742 – 1811) Wax on slate, 16.5 x 40.5cm at Lady Lever
Not a big fan of the Wedgwood we see in the high street shops but this is more interesting, especially the guy on the left playing two whistles (one for each nostril).
Between 1788 and 1790 Wedgwood commissioned some thirty wax models to be made in Rome, copying ancient relief sculptures in the Capitoline Museum. He was able to use the illustrations in a recently published catalogue of the museum collection as a guide.
This model was made by Giuseppe Angelini copying a Roman funerary urn, and was later used as a design on a lilac jasper flower pot. The Elysian Fields were believed to be the home of the blessed in the afterlife.