The Academy

Founded in 1752 by Duke Filippo di Borbone in line with the reforming activity of the small Duchy and promoted by the enlightened minister Guglielmo Du Tillot, the Academy of Fine Arts was conceived on the model of the Académie Française but organized in an innovative way in three sections: painting, sculpture and architecture. It very soon became one of the most vital institutions of this kind in contemporary Europe, a centre of intellectual and artistic exchange in competition with Paris, able to attract in 1771, amongst other candidates, the promising young Francisco Goya.

In this final part of the XIX Hall can be seen displayed in the typical rhythm of neoclassical picture galleries some important “morceaux de reception” by academicians and a selection of prize winning works from the competitions organized during the first fifty years of activity, underlining in the stylistic and iconographic models the passage from the ‘rocaille’ style of the first half of the XVIII century to the neoclassicism of European art from 1760 on. The display is introduced by two marble busts sculpted by Jean-Baptiste Boudard representing the founder of the Institute, Don Filippo, and his daughter Isabella who painted the “morceau de réception” to her right.