The space of the main stairway

The space into which the main stairway opens on the main floor has preserved the decorations of the early nineteenth century.
The large vault, painted with tempera on paper, is a work by Giuseppe Cammarano, who signed and dated it in 1832. The center of the vault is dominated by the Apothosis of Sappho, framed by a gilded cornice of a clear early-nineteenth century taste: the poetess wears classical clothes and looks at Apollo; the god sits on the clouds against the background of a golden sky, populated by the figures of the Muses; a putto holds the cytra, the symbol of Apollo, on which the initials CF appear, which are those of the banker Forquet, the client of the work. The representation has a definite academic style, with marked classical influences, yet it also seems to pay homage to the baroque style of Giordano, whose works were in the palazzo, thanks to the golden atmosphere which permeates the backgrounds, the clouds and the sky.
The walls, instead, are painted with tempera by Gennaro Maldarelli, a close collaborator of Cammarano. Here the female figures of the Muses appear as a clear reference to the work of Canova , and alternate with a set adorned by chandeliers, ovals, animals, vases of flowers, small dancing putti; on the whole, the paintings give back to us a space of great value, thanks also to Art Nouveau brass lamps beside and above the stairway, which date back to the last renovations of the palazzo at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The decorations underwent periodical maintainance interventions (one of which goes back to 1959, as we know from evidence emerged during the last restoration of the vault), yet the decorations had lost much of their chromatic depth and variety, with the result of an overall flattening. The recent restauration, both here and in the rest of the main floor, has managed to fix the tempera pictorial film, to consolidate the paper supporting elements, to clean up the lath-work of the vaults, and to re-paint the dullest chromatic portions. In particular, the background paint on the walls has been recovered, which is of a delicate musk-green hue; and above all, the original play with shadows and the precious gildings of the friezes, with small portraits of allegorical figures.

Related topics:
» The nineteenth-century modifications by the Forquet family
» The recent restaurations
» Virtual view