.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Writing in 1848, George Dennis gives an interesting near-contemporary account of what he discovered at Toscanella:
"It is a mean, dirty town; and its interest lies in its picturesque situation, its Etruscan remains, and its churches, which are choice specimens of the Lombard style. It may be well to introduce the reader to the brothers Campanari, of whom I have occasion to make frequent mention. Besides their society which must always render Toscanella a place of interest to the antiquary, these gentlemen have many things rich and rare, the produce of their scavi, to offer to the traveller's notice.
Their house is a museum of Etruscan antiquities. The most valuable and portable articles soon pass from their hands; and I shall therefore confine my description to the more stationary monuments...
The garden is a most singular place. You seem transported to some scene of Arabian romance, where the people are all turned to stone, or lie spell-bound, awaiting the touch of a magician's wand to restore them to life and activity... Lions, sphinxes, and chimaeras dire in stone, stand among them, as guardians of the place; and many a figure of quaint character and petrified life, looks down on you from the vine-shaded terraces, high above the walls of the garden. It is as strange a place as may well be conceived, and a lonely walk here by moonlight would try weak nerves and lively imaginations".
When compared with this report, the lion in Girault de Prangey's daguerreotype appears a rather benign character, bathed in light against a dark background. It is very similar to the winged lion, VIth century BC, made of volcanic stone which stands in the Louvre. Monsters and other fantastic animals were placed alongside the roads to the necropoli, before the entrances to tombs or funerary chambers.
Girault de Prangey is known to have made four, possibly five, small format images at Toscanella in Italy. His reference numbers run from 40 to 44 omitting the number 42, so it is quite likely there was another. The three others known are all of the Church of St. Peter.
"It is a mean, dirty town; and its interest lies in its picturesque situation, its Etruscan remains, and its churches, which are choice specimens of the Lombard style. It may be well to introduce the reader to the brothers Campanari, of whom I have occasion to make frequent mention. Besides their society which must always render Toscanella a place of interest to the antiquary, these gentlemen have many things rich and rare, the produce of their scavi, to offer to the traveller's notice.
Their house is a museum of Etruscan antiquities. The most valuable and portable articles soon pass from their hands; and I shall therefore confine my description to the more stationary monuments...
The garden is a most singular place. You seem transported to some scene of Arabian romance, where the people are all turned to stone, or lie spell-bound, awaiting the touch of a magician's wand to restore them to life and activity... Lions, sphinxes, and chimaeras dire in stone, stand among them, as guardians of the place; and many a figure of quaint character and petrified life, looks down on you from the vine-shaded terraces, high above the walls of the garden. It is as strange a place as may well be conceived, and a lonely walk here by moonlight would try weak nerves and lively imaginations".
When compared with this report, the lion in Girault de Prangey's daguerreotype appears a rather benign character, bathed in light against a dark background. It is very similar to the winged lion, VIth century BC, made of volcanic stone which stands in the Louvre. Monsters and other fantastic animals were placed alongside the roads to the necropoli, before the entrances to tombs or funerary chambers.
Girault de Prangey is known to have made four, possibly five, small format images at Toscanella in Italy. His reference numbers run from 40 to 44 omitting the number 42, so it is quite likely there was another. The three others known are all of the Church of St. Peter.