Luigi Valadier exhibition at Villa Borghese showcases 18th-century silver master

A new exhibition at Villa Borghese in Rome brings together over 100 works by Luigi Valadier (1726–1785), the celebrated silversmith and entrepreneur whose workshop at Via del Babuino 89 was a hub for Grand Tour travelers. Commissions from the Borghese and Chigi families, Pope Pius VI, and European aristocracy filled his output in silver, gold, bronze, marble, and precious stones. The show includes bronze and alabaster herms, silver repoussé columns, porphyry and carved wood tables, ink and watercolor drawings, gilded bronze candelabra, chased silver liturgical objects, busts, and reliquaries. Valadier's neoclassical style, influenced by Winckelmann, Piranesi, and Canova, sought to revive an idealized ancient world through luxurious materials and pure forms. In 1785, while working on the great bell of St. Peter's Basilica, Valadier died by suicide in the Tiber River near Ripa Grande. His son Giuseppe, the architect who shaped Rome's neoclassical look, succeeded him.