Filippo Tagliolini Biography
Filippo Tagliolini (Fogliano di Cascia, 1745 - Naples, 1809) was an Italian sculptor and ceramist. Born in a small village in the Valnerina, he nurtured a great passion for art from an early age and decided to move to Rome, where in 1766 he won the prestigious sculpture prize of the Accademia di San Luca, after a brief apprenticeship with Pietro Pacilli. Later, he moved first to Venice, to work in the Cozzi brothers' workshop, and then to Vienna, where he had the opportunity to show his skills as a modeler at the imperial porcelain factory.
Already famous, in 1780 he was called to Naples to work at the Royal Ferdinandea factory, created by the sovereigns Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina, where he introduced the use of biscuit and neoclassical taste. Tagliolini created over a hundred works, mainly preserved in the Capodimonte Museum, personally designing and modeling his creations and signing them with a monogram.
Among his most famous works are the Judgment of Paris, the Fall of the Giants, The Education of Achilles by the Centaur Chiron, and Alexander the Great Riding Bucephalus from 1790, currently in a private collection. Tagliolini died in Naples in 1809, at the age of 64.
