.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This large and exceptionally detailed micromosaic tabletop epitomizes the 18th and 19th century fascination with the Antique. The Italian vistas represented here were favored time and again by visitors on the Grand Tour and such scenes were commonly retailed by Roman mosaic workshops as souvenirs of their travels abroad. However, few works were rendered in such meticulous detail and scale as the present table.
The tradition of Roman mosaic was revived in 1576 when The Vatican established the Studio del Mosaico della Fabbrica della Basilica di San Pietro for the embellishment and restoration of St. Peter's Basilica. Following the completion of the Basilica's domes, chapels and cupolas in 1757, the Vatican Studio began commercially producing mosaici in piccolo (micromosaics) solely for visitors on the Grand Tour. For large scale mosaics such as those commissioned for the Basilica in the 16th century, the workshop used cubic tesserae, known as smalti. By the 1760s, mosaicists had developed fine rods or threads of colored glass, called smalti filati, thin enough to be cut into the minute tesserae used on the present lot. These tiny individual tesserae in an almost limitless palette of as many as 28,000 colors allowed truly painterly compositions.
The central roundel depicts Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf from Romolo e Remo allattati dalla Lupa, circa 1616, by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome. The reserve of St. Peter's Square is particularly stunning and is painstakingly inlaid with throngs of bustling figures greeting a Papal carriage procession as it enters the square. The scene is so tremendously detailed that the ivory cap and robe of the Pontiff himself, assumed to be Pope Pius IX (d. 1878), is just visible through the windows of his carriage. Other details include a group of peasant dancers perched high above the Bay of Naples as Vesuvius smolders in the distance - a scene which recalls the Arcadian landscapes of Claude Lorraine so often reproduced by mosaicists to demonstrate their mastery of proportion, scale and perspective.
A nearly identical tabletop with a further Greek key border was sold Christie's, New York, 9 April 2008, lot 113 ($325,000). Another table is illustrated A. di Roberto Grieco, Roman Mosaic: l'arte del micromosaico tra '700 e '800, Rome, 2001, p. 177.
The tradition of Roman mosaic was revived in 1576 when The Vatican established the Studio del Mosaico della Fabbrica della Basilica di San Pietro for the embellishment and restoration of St. Peter's Basilica. Following the completion of the Basilica's domes, chapels and cupolas in 1757, the Vatican Studio began commercially producing mosaici in piccolo (micromosaics) solely for visitors on the Grand Tour. For large scale mosaics such as those commissioned for the Basilica in the 16th century, the workshop used cubic tesserae, known as smalti. By the 1760s, mosaicists had developed fine rods or threads of colored glass, called smalti filati, thin enough to be cut into the minute tesserae used on the present lot. These tiny individual tesserae in an almost limitless palette of as many as 28,000 colors allowed truly painterly compositions.
The central roundel depicts Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf from Romolo e Remo allattati dalla Lupa, circa 1616, by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome. The reserve of St. Peter's Square is particularly stunning and is painstakingly inlaid with throngs of bustling figures greeting a Papal carriage procession as it enters the square. The scene is so tremendously detailed that the ivory cap and robe of the Pontiff himself, assumed to be Pope Pius IX (d. 1878), is just visible through the windows of his carriage. Other details include a group of peasant dancers perched high above the Bay of Naples as Vesuvius smolders in the distance - a scene which recalls the Arcadian landscapes of Claude Lorraine so often reproduced by mosaicists to demonstrate their mastery of proportion, scale and perspective.
A nearly identical tabletop with a further Greek key border was sold Christie's, New York, 9 April 2008, lot 113 ($325,000). Another table is illustrated A. di Roberto Grieco, Roman Mosaic: l'arte del micromosaico tra '700 e '800, Rome, 2001, p. 177.