Through March 8th, visitors at the Capitoline Museums may find themselves befuddled when they see a giant pair of porcelain lips pouting below a series of relief sculptures that depict Marcus Aurelius making a triumphal procession.
The incongruous pair of lips is part (the best part, we might add) of a temporary exhibit of several hundred pieces of Sèvres porcelain installed in the galleries of Rome’s oldest museum. The exhibit honors the achievements of the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, a porcelain factory founded in the 18th century and located in the French city of Sèvres. Once endorsed and promoted by the mistresses of Louis XV, Sèvres today manufactures only 4,000 to 5,000 pieces of porcelain every year.
Among more recent works is La Bocca (the Mouth) which bears a strange resemblance to the lip-shaped sofa designed by Salvador Dalì. Designed by Bertrand Lavier, the creation of the porcelain lips required more than 18 months of work in the studios.
