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No instance in Italian sculpture in this period is more extreme than the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, which was transformed into a a sculptural pantheon by Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, in the 1750s. By importing Antonio Corradini from Venice and Francesco Queirolo (1704-1762) from Genoa, the Prince of Sansevero evolved an elaborate programme of monuments and medallions to celebrate generations of his family, each in the light of a guiding virtue. The subjects of the tombs included Sincerity, Religious Zeal and Liberality, but the most remarkable works are Corradini's Modesty and Queirolo's Release from Deception. Paired in the chapel's presbytery, they were conceived as monuments to the patron's mother and father respectively.
The Release from Deception shows a man's emergence from the snares of error. It is, in fact, a self-portrait of the sculptor, as he is being helped from a net of cords by his own intellect, shown in the guise of a winged boy; the intellect points at the world, the source of deception, with a sceptre.
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