Pietro Caproni

Who was Pietro Caproni?

Pietro Paulo Caproni was founder and co-owner of PP Caproni & Brother, Boston, Massachusetts, manufacturers of plaster reproductions of classical and contemporary statues. These 'cast' reproductions were, in an era before commercial photography, an integral educational tool in teaching people the history of art and antiquities.

Together with his brother, Emilio, the Caproni brothers supplied art schools, major universities and museums in the United States and abroad with quality reproductions. The firm operated under their ownership between 1892 and 1927, the year the company was sold and a year before Pietro's death.

Before World War II major United States museums had cast collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Although Caproni did not supply these museums with their casts, he did supply other museums with their casts, and they included:

⁕the William J. Battle Collection at the University of Texas,

⁕the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts,

⁕the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon.

University collections which the Caproni installed included those at Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Cornell University. Art schools such as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts used Caproni casts as models for their art students to draw from.²