@DonnaML
Caruso (1873-1921), Enrico.
The Neapolitan operatic tenor Enrico Caruso sang in Milan and in London, but was especially known in New York as the leading male singer at the Metropolitan Opera for 17 years. One of the world’s greatest artists, according to Arturo Toscanini, he was also a pioneer of recorded music – the first artist to sell a million gramophone records with an aria from Pagliacci in 1902.
Caruso bought coins voraciously, both from dealers and from auctions (such as Montagu’s and Gnecchi’s), but it remained a private passion – not displayed, that was little known during his lifetime. With over 250 recordings, in addition to his live performances, Caruso earned a fortune which allowed him to collect whatever he liked: according to Ambrogio Canessa, Caruso’s reply when asked what he was looking for, was « the rarest and most beautiful ». His love for coin had started when the baritone Antonio Scotti had brought him to meet Amedeo Canessa: “it was Mr. Canessa who started Caruso off on the long and happy adventure of coin collecting. One day he showed Caruso a tiny gold coin engraved with the head of Queen Arsinoe II. ‘That little thing costs five hundred francs’ said Mr. Canessa. Caruso examined it carefully, turning it over and over in his hand. ‘It is beautiful’ he said. ‘I like it. But what is the use of only one coin? I don’t want one coin’. ‘There is only this one’, Mr. Canessaexplained, it is a very rare specimen’. ‘Very well, then’, said Caruso, ‘it is mine’. And that was how the collection began which grew to more than 2000 coins from all over the world and from every century beginning with the fifth century BC. After that, Caruso began haunting old shops and street barrows, he spent many hours at auctions and in the great museums of the world, always studying, always finding out more about his coins and other objects d’art. The historical significance of each treasure charmed the tenor. He learned through these beautiful objects what most people learn through books”.
According to a F. Canessa, a descendant of the dealers, a selection of coins from the collections of king Vittorio Emanuele III and of Enrico Caruso were exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which took place in 1915 in San Francisco. A catalogue would be precious, to document a terminus ante quem of the acquisition of some of Caruso’s coins. Alas, although there is a 59-page leaflet entitled Catalogue Canessa’s collection, it contains no coins, and I wasn’t able to find the confirmation of this numismatic exhibition and of its content. Itcould be that these were the non-ancient coins that were to be sold amongst other antiquities and works-of-art in New York in February-March 1923.
In a will written in 1913, Caruso had decided to leave his gold coins to the Naples museum, but he changed his mind and in 1919 he removed this clause from his will. Amedeo Canessa was later charged by the government to act as tutor to Gloria Caruso for the division of the inheritance (which totaled 32 million Lire / 1,280,000 Dollars), and his coin collection was sold in Naples 28 June –3 July 1923 in 1,471 lots (of which 3 were missing and 20 went to the Naples museum), for a total of 880,000 Lire. The auction remains so important that the catalogue was reprinted in 1970.
A contemporary witness reported: “5 août1921. Le ténor Caruso est mort. On n’a pas connu de mémoire d’homme une si belle voix. Ses cachets étaient fabuleux. Le phonographe seul lui rapportait cent cinquante mille dollars par an. C’était un gros italien paysan du Danube. Il faisait des gestes d’un comique de bas tréteau. Quand il voulait être tragique, c’était à rire, et quand il voulait être comique, c’était à pleurer”. He then added some years later: “Février 1928. La vente Caruso. Le superbe ténor avait épousé une Américaine qui était folle de lui. Elle avait de l’argent, et il lui en a laissé en quantité. Cette civilisée vend toutes les collections, tous les costumes de théâtre. Toute la défroque est à l’encan, les souvenirs, la trousse de théâtre et celle du voyage de noces”.
He also owned an interesting collection of banknotes.
