FEATURES ARCHIVE

Grand Tourists sought out new lands, cultures and a sense of history. Often, they brought a piece of that history home with them.

Beginning in the late 16th century, an important part of any young English aristocrat’s education was the Grand Tour: a voyage of discovery through Continental Europe to study classical culture, art and architecture while gaining some social polish. Popular destinations along the journey included Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all, Rome, to cultivate firsthand knowledge of the Greco-Roman empire. Like many modern tourists—but on a very grand scale—these young aristocratic travelers purchased souvenirs, including commissioned works by local artists, as well as furniture and decorative objects. These cultural mementos would subsequently decorate the residences of the traveling aristocrats, reminding them of their time abroad and displaying their new-found erudition.

Grand Souvenir
The Regency scagliola and goncalo alves center table is just the kind of prized acquisition coveted by the young, aristocratic English Grand Tourist. Its pictorial tabletop depicts the important landmarks he would have visited in Rome, including St. Peter’s cathedral, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon and the Colosseum. At first glance, the table top appears to be a watercolor, but it is actually scagliola, a composite substance developed to imitate more costly inlaid marble. Scagliola (derived from the Italian scaglia, meaning "chips") is made from selenite, glue and natural pigments, painstakingly applied to a prepared surfaced to create highly detailed images, then polished with flax oil for brightness following a final protective layer of wax. The table’s base would have been commissioned upon the tourist’s return and was often made from an exotic hardwood—in this case goncalo alves, a wood so dense that it earned the nickname “the axe-breaker.”

Worldly Views
The art of topographical painting was also fashionable among the Grand Tourists. Veduta estatta (Italian for "exact view") refers to a style of painting composed of a realistic view of a specific place, often with decipherable, identifying details. During the 19th century, European monarchs often commissioned porcelain painted with landmarks of their domain to be presented as royal gifts. This Berlin tea service for one, or "cabaret", is painted with views of the royal palaces and residences of Berlin and Potsdam. Most topographical scenes were based on contemporary watercolors. At the K.P.M. factory in Berlin, painters, in this case the noted landscape painter Carl Daniel Freydanck, created them specifically to be transferred onto porcelain.