Quest by mother and daughter revives beloved Italian sculptures

12:33 PM EST on Sunday, December 18, 2005

BY LAURA MEADE KIRK
Journal Staff Writer

One of Deborah Cascini's favorite holiday traditions is heading to New York City each year with her mother, Karen, to see the "angel tree" that's part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Creche exhibit.

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The two have long marveled at the craftsmanship of these 18th-century sculptures. Each is painstakingly made by hand, with molded terra cotta faces, carved wooden limbs and wings that move, and delicate adornments of linen, lace and precious metals.

For years, Karen longed to own one of these treasures. But they couldn't find any shops here or abroad that sold Neapolitan angels.

"They were very precious and very rare. We never saw them for sale," Deborah said.

But five years ago, when the Cascinis traveled to Italy, they tracked down a sculptor who specialized in creating and restoring the Neapolitan angels -- using the same techniques her forebears had used hundreds of years before.

And they found another artist willing to make another exquisite type of old-world angel, using a technique called cartapesta, the Italian word for papier-mache.

The Cascinis felt as though they'd struck gold. They decided to create a company to design, import and sell these two kinds of angels and other religious figures they had revered for years.

"We said that if we love these so much, there must be other people out there who do also," said Deborah Cascini, who lives in Newport.

In fact, she said with a chuckle, "we do it for the love of the art, not so much to make money -- because we haven't yet." At this point, the owners of Angeli Art Imports are simply trying to spread the word that they're available.

THE CASCINIS AREN'T your typical importers.

Karen is a certified public accountant with a doctorate degree in accounting. She teaches accounting at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., not far from her home in Durham, Conn.

In 1989, Deborah, who'd studied interior design and business, moved to Newport, where over the years she owned and operated two shops: Euphoria, a jewelry store, and the Newport Stamp Store, which sold rubber stamps for crafting.

But growing up, she shared her mother's love of the angels.

She recalls how her mother years ago started collecting plastic angels that were knock-offs of the cartapesta angels at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"I loved them," Karen said. "I loved the look. I loved the sweet faces. I was just crazy about them."

Eventually, Karen began scouring gift and holiday shops throughout New England for the real thing, collecting as many of the imported angels as she could find. Soon she had more than a dozen -- enough to create her own "angel tree" for Christmas.

But by the early 1980s, there were no more to be found. Shop owners said the importer had stopped supplying them.

A label on one of the angel boxes showed it had come from a small town in southern Italy, so Karen convinced her husband, Peter, to take a vacation to try to track down the manufacturer. They headed to the Apulia region -- she declined to name the town, so as not to give away her company's secrets -- and quickly learned that they'd been made by a pair of brothers who lived there.

IT TURNED OUT THAT one of the brothers had died, and the other was about to close the business. He allowed Karen and Peter into his "factory": a single room of his house with a long table flanked by benches. A half-dozen local women worked for him -- down from about two dozen when the factory was in full operation -- in assembly-line fashion to make the angels.

But he refused to sell Karen and Peter any angels.

He said he was simply filling the last of his orders before giving up his business for good.

Karen recalls thinking: "He's got his nerve. We came all the way here."

She and her husband nosed around to see if anyone else made the angels. They quickly learned that other types of artists in the village had no respect for the brothers; they said they'd cheapened the art of cartapesta by creating angels of plastic and rubber.

That explained why the angels Karen had been collecting were so inexpensive, selling for about $25 apiece. They weren't true cartapesta, after all.

No one could produce the name of anyone who did use the proper technique, so Karen and Peter returned from their quest empty-handed. "But it never left my mind," Karen said. "I thought: 'Somehow I'm going to get [authentic cartapesta] angels.' "

THE YEARS PASSED, AND the Cascinis continued their annual pilgrimage to the "angel tree" in New York City. During their visit six years ago, Karen made a declaration: "Deb, we're going to find these."

In the spring of 2000, Deborah and Karen arranged to rent a house in southern Italy for two months. Deborah figured that was the best shot they'd ever have of tracking down some of the hand-sculpted angels.

In fact, she thought, if she could find someone willing to make true cartapesta angels -- the traditional ones, made of wire, wrapped with straw, and draped with handmade paper molded to create the details that made them look real -- then perhaps she could start a business importing and selling them.

But the key was to find the right artist.

THEY BEGAN CONTACTING artists and art professors here and abroad. Most of the Italian artists told them they wanted no part of the angels the brothers had made, those with plastic bodies and rubber wings.

Karen persisted. She told each artist, "I want 100 percent true cartapesta."

Finally, they tracked down an artist named Mario, renowned for restoring historic cartapesta statues and figures throughout the region.

He agreed to create some angels for the Cascinis, but it was going to take some time.

Meanwhile, the Cascinis, happy with at least this much progress, went out to lunch one day with the retired doctor and his wife who owned their rental house.

Karen and Deborah explained their mission, and the doctor began telling them about another time-honored art form in Italy: "moschelle," which he said was the Italian word for authentic Neapolitan micro-miniature sculptures created out of cork, wood and plaster, with hand-sculpted figures of terra cotta.

Since retiring, the doctor was spending much of his time creating these one-of-a-kind miniatures. He offered to make them for the Cascinis' new business.

He then had another surprise: He knew of an artists guild whose members had done restoration work on Neapolitan angels, including those on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Eventually, he introduced the Cascinis to a sculptor named Guida, who actually made Neapolitan angels for private collectors in Italy. She showed the Cascinis her work, and they were amazed. "I couldn't believe it," Karen recalled. "I saw these angels, just like the ones on the Met tree."

Guida agreed to create some Neapolitan angels for them the authentic way, with wire bodies covered with hemp and gesso and delicately carved limbs and wings. She promised the terra cotta heads would be crafted by hand as well, with a glass blower hired to create hand-blown eyeballs, which would then be painted by hand. The clothes would be made only of the finest Italian cottons, linens and silks, and the adornments would be pure precious metals -- mostly silver and gold.

The Cascinis were thrilled: mission accomplished. They had found makers for both Neapolitan and cartapesta angels, and for moschelle micro-figures as well.

They had no idea that day that the launch of their business would still be years away.

IT WAS A PAINSTAKING PROCESS. Karen explained that she and Deborah would come up with a design, based on authentic cartapesta and Neapolitan pieces they'd seen. The artists would then fashion a prototype.

Karen recalls how Mario spent weeks creating the first prototype, in 2000. "I fell in love with it," she recalled. But when he tried to replicate that angel, she said, he tweaked some features on the face and body and ruined it.

This happened again and again. "He'd get the head right, and the body would be awful, or the wings would be awful," Karen said.

Angel parts were flying back and forth between New England and Italy. Finally, they agreed on a small selection of angels to be produced -- and then Mario had to come up with a system for producing 100 at a time. After that, they had to design a way to package the angels to protect them in shipment.

During this long process, they were also working with the doctor and the sculptor Guida, trying to line up the Neapolitan micro-miniatures, angels and creches as well.

WHILE THE ARTISTS HAVE BEEN hard at work overseas, the Cascinis have had some hard work here: Educating potential customers about what makes cartapesta and Neapolitan figurines so special -- and so expensive.

Many American consumers are used to buying inexpensive figurines, mass-produced of resin, Karen said.

A true cartapesta or Neapolitan figurine takes from a few weeks to a few months to complete, depending on the size and detail involved. "They're so labor-intensive," Deborah said, but it's the intricate carvings on each face and the handsculpted clothes and accessories that make them unique.

That's why cartapesta pieces range in price from $90 to $500 for an 8- to 12-inch Rennaisance angel to $3,400 for an 8-piece, 14-inch creche set. Prices for the Neapolitan pieces range from $365 for an 8-inch angel to $8,500 for a sculpture of the Holy Family against the backdrop of a tree featuring an angel hovering overhead -- although a customer in Manhattan just paid $25,000 for a custom-designed nativity set. And the moschelles, which generally run 6 to 14 inches high, range in price from $480 to $1,400.

Deborah believes there is a market for these exquisite creations. People are tired, she said, of copies turned out by the thousands, and artwork that doesn't mean anything.

The angels at the end of this long quest are not just a holiday decoration, she said. They're a piece of art -- and a piece of Italian history as well.

Angeli Art Imports sells its artifacts at museum and specialty stores across the country, including Simple Pleasures in Providence, the Ball and Claw in Newport, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They also sell and take custom orders through the Web site www.angeliart.com.

A guide to the art forms

Cartapesta

For centuries, Italian artists have used paper to create sculpted art referred to as cartapesta, said Deborah Cascini, one of the founders of Angeli Art Imports. It dates to the early 17th century, when the Catholic church was in the midst of a construction boom, building elaborate cathedrals throughout southern Italy to lure people back to the church.

With all that construction, the church didn't have enough money for elaborate stone sculptures and other adornments, Cascini said. So local paper artists worked with stone carvers from the north, who'd been brought down to build the churches, and they created cartapesta as an inexpensive alternative to carved stone, she said.

They used sculpted terra cotta busts, hands and feet that are mounted on a form made of wire wrapped in straw, Cascini explained. Handmade paper, moistened with glue, is wrapped around the wire form and these are then scorched to provide a smooth, sculpted shape. Plaster is then applied in layers and then dried in the sun and smoothed by hand, to give it the sculpted look. Each piece is then hand painted. The result is a sculpture that looks like carved stone but is much lighter and less expensive than traditional sculptures.

Neapolitan

Neapolitan creche figures, so named because they originated in the Naples region, are much more elaborate than their "country cousins," the cartapesta, Cascini said. They have sculpted busts and limbs, and their hand-painted glass eyes are individually hand-blown. They're also known for their clothes and accessories, from silk and lace to fine gems and precious-metal trim. It takes several artists to make a single Neapolitan figure, Cascini said, including sculptors, wood carvers, glass blowers, metal smiths and lace makers. It's not uncommon for some collectors to have large collections featuring anything from the traditional Nativity setting to an entire "village" full of people and animals.

Moschelles

The micro-miniature Neapolitan creche sculptures, known as "moschelles," were introduced in the 19th century, Cascini said, when Neapolitan artists began creating tiny sculptures set against elaborate backdrops generally carved of cork or wood. They then create tiny figures, such as religious figures or animals, of sculpted terra cotta that are then hand painted.