Tuesday, November 4, 2014

St. Peter's Church, Chetnole

This church dates back to the Thirteenth Century. Slater and Carpenter refurbished the building between 1860 and 1865, including rebuilding the chancel.

http://www.opcdorset.org/ChetnoleFiles/Chetnole%20church%20b%20Jul2010r.jpg

Salviati inlaid the alabaster reredos with mosaic during this time.


Sources:
Three Valleys Team
British Listed Buildings
Dorset OPC Project

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Leland Stanford Jr. Museum

The Leland Stanford Junior Museum was designed by architects Percy and Hamilton and built by Jane Stanford in memory of her son. The museum was modeled after the National Museum in Athens, Greece. It opened in 1894 and with expansions in both 1898 and 1905, it soon became the largest privately-owned museum buildings in the world.



Salviati decorated the exterior of the original building with mosaic panels between 1903 and 1905, at the time the firm made the mosaics for the Memorial Church. Both were to Paoletti's designs. The subject of the museum's thirteen panels are learning, the arts - like architecture and painting, and ancient civilizations - including Egypt and Rome. There are four, rectangular panels on the facade flanking the main entrance, two large gables at the ends, and three, smaller panels above the entry doors themselves. The museum's north rotunda also had niches decorated with Salviati mosaics.


The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that also severely damaged the Stanford Memorial Church, destroyed two-thirds of the museum building and collections. Luckily for the mosaics, the original structure sustained the least amount of damage.






Budget cuts led to neglect and the museum fell into further disrepair, fully closing in 1945. Reopening in 1954, the galleries were gradually refurbished through fundraising and volunteers. Another earthquake in 1989 damaged the museum again, but it was subsequently rebuilt and opened as the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts in 1999.




Sources:
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 98-99.
Cantor Arts Center
Wikigogo
Stanford University and the 1906 Earthquake
"Facelift for Stanford's Memorial Auditorium, new Roof for Cantor Arts Center." Stanford News. April 17, 2014.
Arcticpenguin's flickr Photostream
Steve Rhodes' flickr Photostream
E. Chen's flickr Photostream

Monday, June 16, 2014

Morosini mosaic in Talygarn House

A fifty square foot mosaic was created by Salviati for the 1881 Italian Exposition in Milan based on an original 1879 design by artist Giacomo Favretto. It's called "Venice Presenting the Baton of Command to Francesco Morosini".


Morosini was a 17th century Venetian soldier and sailor. The composition includes Morosini himself, Venetia as a beautiful woman, Kleio the muse of history, and St. Mark's lion. More than 7,000 color variations in tesserae were used with the noticeable exception of Salviati's signature gold.


In 1885, George Thomas Clark - a friend of Sir Austen Henry Layard - purchased the mosaic from the Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company for 250 British Pounds and had it installed in the Hall of Talygarn House in Wales. Incidentally, Clark also gifted a mosaic reredos of the Last Supper by Salviati to the Charterhouse School in Godalming.



The mosaic - seen above in Talygarn House - was removed in the 1920s when the house became a convalescent home for miners. At one point, it had been left in a field on the property and as of 2008, there was the intent to donate it to the National Museum of Wales.


 Favretto's 1879 painting can be found in Venice's Museo d'Arte Moderna, ca'Pesaro.

Sources:
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 60-63.
ebay
Plant, Margaret. Venice: Fragile City 1797-1997. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 175.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Church of the Holy Ghost, Genoa

Although there has been an English speaking, Anglican church in Genoa since at least 1818, the current church was built in 1873 by G.E. Street. The black and white stripes of the interior stone work reflect a Romanesque style.



Salviati made a mosaic altarpiece and four Evangelists for the church. While the church was partially damaged during World War II, the central reredos of The Good Shepherd has been restored. The flanking arcades that most likely contained the other mosaics, however, stand empty.


Sources:
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 127.
The Church of the Holy Ghost Genoa, Italy

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Funerary Monuments in Croatian Cemeteries

Ivan Rendic was a Croatian sculptor who studied in Italy - including in Venice - and later worked extensively out of Trieste. He made numerous funerary monuments in the cemeteries around Rijeka (including Kozala, Trsat-Susak, Opatija and Bakar), some of which Salviati also decorated with enamel mosaics. A catalog prepared for the 1893 World Columbian Exposition does not detail exactly which memorials Salviati worked on (and erroneously lists Trieste as the location of the cemeteries), but the following examples were all made by Rendic before 1893 and are embellished with mosaics.


The interior of the Gorup family mausoleum from 1882 in Rijeka's Kozala cemetery. Josip Gorup had the memorial built after the death of his wife in childbirth, and the carved relief shows the separation of a mother from her eight children.


The Devet/Spilar-Ambrozic memorial from 1885 in the Kozala cemetery.


The Pilepic monument from 1890.


The Stiglich family tombstone from 1891.

The Bakarcic monument from 1892 in the Kozala cemetery.

Sources:
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2005. 126.
Metzger-Sober, Branko. "Funerary Monuments by Ivan Rendic in the Croatian Littoral." Ars Adriatica. 3. Dec 2013.
Wikipedia

Monday, February 24, 2014

St. Andrew's Moreton on Lugg

This Medieval church was reconstructed in 1867 by W.H. Knight of Cheltenham.


Salviati added the chancel wall mosaics of the "Heavenly Jerusalem" in 1887 after a commission by Harriet Evans, widow of Thomas Evans, owner of the nearby Morton Court.



Sources:
British Listed Buildings
Wikimedia Commons from Philip Halling
Pevsner, Nikolaus. Buildings of England: herefordshire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. 256.
National Churches Trust
Duncumb, John et al. Collections Towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford. Vol 3. London: John Murray, 1882. 145.
Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire (1895). 143.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Cast Court, South Kensington Museum

Two architectural courts were designed by General Henry Scott in 1870 for the museum to house both cast reproductions of architectural elements, as well as some original pieces. The space opened in 1873. Salviati and Company made two mosaic reproductions that originally hung on the walls of the south-east Court.

The Good Shepherd is a copy of the lunette above the entrance of the Chapel of Galla Placida in Ravenna Italy originally from the 5th century.


The Salviati mosaic lunette on top right in the Weston Cast Court, 2016.


The original mosaic in Ravenna

The mosaic Figure of Christ is a copy from St. Mark's Basilica in Venice from the 13th century. It depicts the Savior giving a benediction (item 8036-1862), acquired by the museum in 1862 for 200BP, but which is now in storage. Salviati made another copy of a St. Mark's mosaic image of Christ for St. Augustine's College in Canterbury.

The museum also bought in 1864 a mosaic medallion of the head of St. John the Evangelist (item 797-1864) from Salviati for 25BP, but it is now also in storage.

Sources:
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Appell, William. Christian Mosaic Pictures: A Catalogue of Reproductions of Christian Mosaics. London: South Kensington Museum, 1877. 17.
Wikimedia Commons
Film London
Metaphor
V& A Search.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. Vol. 1. London : Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Sa'id Pasha's Palace, Mex (Alexandria)

Mohamed Sa'id Pasha was Egypt's Viceroy from 1854 until his death in 1863. He was educated in Paris and he began the development of the Suez Canal. In addition to the Qasr al Nil, his grand palace in Cairo, Sa'id Pasha built a palace on the old (or west) Alexandria harbor at Mex  (or Meks, Maks, or Al-Maqs). Unlike Sa'id's other Alexandrian palace at Gabari, the one at Mex was never finished.

The floor and walls of the palace's saloon were decorated with Salviati mosaics, which were ordered in 1860 at the cost of about 250,000 francs. Unfortunately, by 1878 the palace was a "bulbous ruin".


The abandoned palace compound at Mex, 1870.


Illustration of the entry gate at Mex palace.


Map of Alexandria from 1908. Meks is on the lower left.

Sources:
Salviati, Antonio. On Mosaics (generally). Leeds, 1865. 42.
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 132.
Salviati, Antonio. Les manufactures Salviati & Cie à Venise et Murano. Mosaïques, verres Paris, 1867. 15.
Rogers, Edward Thomas. "The Land of Egypt." The Art Journal. London: D. Appleton & Company. 5. 1879. 68-70. 
Lane-Poole, Stanley. Social Life in Egypt: A Description of a Country and Its People. 5. New York: P.F. Collier, 1884. 117-120.
Allatson, Wendy. Egypt.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. 546.
Burton, Richard Francis. The gold-mines of Midian and the ruined Midianite cities. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1878. 4.
Wikipedia 
usbpanasonic's flickr Photostream

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

St. George Church, Clyst St. George

The ancient church was rebuilt in 1854-55, but it was gutted by air raid fire in 1940. It was rebuilt again in 1952.



Sometime between September 1862 and October 1863, Salviati decorated the church's western wall with mosaics of angels with widespread wings supporting scrolls of Scripture on the request of the same Reverend Ellacombe who supervised the 1850s restorations. Unfortunately, the mosaics did not seem to have survived the World War II damage.

Sources:
Salviati, Antonio. On Mosaics (generally). Leeds, 1865. 46.
Wikipedia
Cherry, Bridget and Nikolaus Pevsner. Devon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.  271.
Ellacombe, Henry Thomas. The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Clyst St. George Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, September 22, 1862. 70.
Robin Drayton on Geograph
Robert Slack's flickr Photostream

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Portraits II

Singapore's Peranakan Museum holds the two Salviati mosaic portraits made for local businessman Tan Soo Bin.



Previously, the portraits apparently were hung in the family's home Panglima Prang that was built before 1860 and demolished in 1982.


The National Museum of Bavaria purchased Salviati's mosaic portrait reproductions of Hagia Sophia's 10th century depictions of Justinian and Theodora (which themselves are copies of those from the 6th century in Ravenna) at the 1873 Vienna Universal Exposition.


Original mosaics of Justinian and Theodora from Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (not Salviati - illustration only)

Salviati and Burke exhibited a mosaic portrait of Titian, as well as the head of Christ after Guido Reni at the fall 1884 meeting of the Architectural Association in London.


Reproduction of Thorn-crowned Christ after Guido Reni by A. Orsoni of Venice (not Salviati - illustration only)

Sources:
"Architectural Association." The Building News and Engineering Journal. October 17, 1884. 612.
Artistic Mosaic Catalog of Works 
Reports on the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873. 3. H.M. Stationery Office, 1874.  16.
The Hagia Sophia: A Tribute to Justinian. pdf.
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 119.
Cylee's flickr Photostream
Liza Rahmat's flickr Photostream
Wright, Arnold and H.A. Cartwright, eds. Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya. London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., Ltd, 1908. 631-32.
Ming Blue. "A Great House of the Past." Featherglass. 2011.
Singapore Infopedia

Monday, January 27, 2014

National Museum of Scotland


A mosaic reredos of The Last Supper, as well as a copy of a 9th century mosaic featuring the portrait of a saint were purchased by the museum - known at the time as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art - at the 1873 Vienna Universal Exposition.




The mosaic is almost identical to the one made by Salviati in 1875 for the reredos in St. Andrew's Church, Earl's Colne.


Sources:
Reports on the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873. 3. H.M. Stationery Office, 1874.189.
PeterEdin's flickr Photostream
David Dorren's flickr Photostream
Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.'s flickr Photostream

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Orvieto Cathedral

The building of this Roman Catholic cathedral in northern Italy started in the 13th century. Maitani's Tuscan Gothic facade recalls the cathedrals at both Siena and Florence. Cesare Nebbia designed the original mosaics from 1350-90.


Just like with St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Salviati's craftsmen also restored the mosaics on the upper part of this cathedral's facade sometime before 1883.



The Coronation of the Virgin on the topmost gable.

Sources:
Art Notes. NY Times. February 4, 1883.
Wikipedia
Adonovan0 on Wikimedia Commons
Georges Jansoone on Wikimedia Commons
fortherock on Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Neuer Dom, Linz

The new cathedral also known as the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic church built 1862-1924 after designs by Vincenz Statz.



Salviati decorated the apse with 24 mosaic figures.



Sources:
Wikipedia
Saint Leopold-Blatt. Volumes 1-3. 1887-89. 38.
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 122.
Pierre Bona on Wikimedia Commons
Linz Presse
Jan Lefers' flickr Photostream

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

St. Mary Magdalene Church, Altofts

This church was built by architects Richard Life Adams and John Kelly of Leeds between 1873-90. It was consecrated in 1878, by which time the reredos was also completed.


The Caen stone reredos was carved by Leeds sculptor Canova Throp. The mosaic embellishment was made by Salviati after Pietro Perugino's 15th century fresco in Florence's cloister of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi.



Perugino's "Crucifixion" depicts two additional figures: St. Bernard on the left in white and St. Benedict on the right in blue.


Salviati's interpretation for the mosaic reredos.


The Virgin Mary is on the left panel.


Mary Magdalene is seen praying at Christ's feet.

St. John the Baptist is on the right.

Sources:
Treasures Revealed in Wakefield 2010. 18.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. Yorkshire: The West Riding. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 80.
"New Church of St. Mary Magdalene." The British Architect: A Journal of Architecture. Vol. 10. Nov 1878. 185.
JThomas on Geograph
Museums in Florence
Photographs of the reredos were kindly provided by the Church Warden of St. Mary Magdalene's, Altofts