Kuntze/Chuntze/Konicz in the Casino Borghese, and the identity-alterity of the artist

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes the medallions, which were created by Taddeus (Tadeusz) Kuntze in the mid-1780s, for the Casino Borghese, one of the first modern museums, in Stanza di Ercole, Rome. In terms of the iconographic program of the Casino Borghese, the images of musicians portrayed in the medallions relate to the idea of an artist identifying to a cultural field other than the “classical” one. In fact, the medallions present a distinctive strategy of fostering a broadening definition of the artist, who until then was defined in national terms as Polish or German. In the context of the scuola romana, these medallions will be interpreted as a mark of the artist’s “alterity” in eighteenth-century Rome.