Pope Pius VII on horseback

Gregorio Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti was elected Pope in 1800. In 1809 he was imprisoned by the Emperor Napoleon and returned to Rome in 1814.

There is a similar earthenware statuette in the collections of the Ashmolean museum. This suggests that the statuette may have been produced by the Civita Castellana factory, either shortly after its foundation of when the Pope returned to the Vatican in May 1814.