ABSTRACT
In the June 1937 edition of the British periodical Decoration Mario Praz published a brief article entitled “An Empire Flat in a Roman Palace”—barely five pages in length with ten or so photographs—in which he described his Rome apartment. Clearly intended for an English readership, the piece opens with a description of central Rome: Via Giulia and Palazzo Ricci, where Praz had been living since 1934, before going on to examine room after room the Empire furnishings that he himself describes as having “started collecting since my Florence days.” Several of the most important pieces in the collection, such as the console with the polychrome marble top, the large psyche (reversible mirror) and the bed produced by Jacob were already present in the Palazzo Ricci rooms, while other more modest furnishings were soon replaced with finer pieces. The photographs that accompany the article show the large rooms of Palazzo Ricci almost empty, with the walls particularly striking in that they lack many of the paintings with which they were covered in later years. Certain elements of the collector’s taste for assonance are already present, however, such as in “a ladies’ sitting-room”—known also as the Love and Psyche Room—that is furnished with a selection of thematically similar subjects, from eighteenth-century pastel reproductions of Raphael’s decorations at the Farnesina depicting episodes from the myth of Love and Psyche, to candelabra supported by cherubs, an oil painting with Love tasting the point of an arrow and a Viennese glass with Love behind bars “pour avoir volé des coeurs” (because of his having stolen some hearts). But Praz dwells particularly on the festive colour schemes and lighting throughout the apartment, with the intention of dispelling the widespread perception of the Empire style as “cold,” severe and funereal, in favour of highlighting its more pleasing Alexandrian tonalities.
