The MARIO PRAZ MUSEUM IN ROME

Never a rich man, he bought with what he could save from his earnings. He was one of those collectors who are ahead of the trade yet very close to it, looking for fields that were not yet appreciated and always keeping his eyes open on his daily rounds of the antiquaries. In The House of Life he commented on what was not available in antiques shops in his early days about 1934, such as neoclassical pictures and Empire chandeliers. But clearly there was a two-way process at work, with dealers picking up on his interests and keeping an eye open for what he liked and what they realized could be made fashionable.

A second two-way process was also at work: between the growth and arrangement of his collection and what he saw depicted in conversation pieces and portraits in interiors. Thus the Abbati painting of Queen Mafia Isabella of Naples, which he bought in 1960 (Pl. IV), led to the picture of him at work in his salone at the Palazzo Ricci, an equally meticulously planned and executed work, which he commissioned from Sergio De Francisco in 1965 (P1. IX).

It would be interesting to know how established was the character of his old apartment at the time his marriage broke up in 1943. During World War II there was little opportunity to buy antiques, although he did make some outstanding finds such as a watercolor of the interior of the royal palace in Naples painted by Elie Honore Montagny in 1811 (P1. XI). There was still not much on the market in 1946, but ten years later he noted that his nineteenth-century taste for crowded walls had returned to favor. Certainly his possessions and their arrangement in the via Zanardelli apartment give a sense of having replaced his wife and daughter, who never occupied her room. By the time he moved there, neoclassicism had become an enthusiasm of art historians, and when a large neoclassical exhibition was held in 1972 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Praz was recognized as the doyen of the subject. He continues to have an influence on historical and so-called authentic decoration on both sides of the Atlantic .

Praz is a figure as intriguing as he is puzzling, but increasingly younger generation is unable to hard to approach because the take the same sweeping view of literature and make the same connections between literature and art, let alone England and Italy One can only hope not only that The House of Life will be reprinted but also that someone will be brave enough to write Praz's life and publish it in English as well as in Italian. Then the apartment in the via Zanardelli will reveal more of its secrets.

JOHN CORNFORTH has been writing about the history of English decoration for many years.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
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