The Jonah slab and the "Paschal Candelabrum" in the Museo di Capodimonte: from fragments to contexts

Two sculptural fragments dating to the thirteenth century now exhibited alongside one another in room 63 of the Capodimonte Museum could in part share a common history of conservation, started in the National Museum of Naples, nowadays Museo Archeologico Nazionale, and perhaps a same derivation from the demolition works carried out in Naples from the last decades of the 19th century (the “Risanamento”). In the case of the fragment identified as part of a Paschal candelabrum, its presence in the National Museum is variously witnessed from the early 1900s, as documented by the museum catalogues and the attached inventory number. However, for the fragment with Jonah and the sea monster, the pertinence to the same museum can only be assumed on the basis of a comment by Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, who noted it “nella R. Galleria di Napoli” in 1936.