Decorative arts 19th century

“Malachite Diplomacy” charts the discovery and attribution of Russian lapidary art that left the Russian Empire’s borders during various periods as diplomatic gifts. Ludmilla Budrina holds a PhD in Art History and her extensive research in museums, archives, libraries and private collections, both in Russia and abroad, formed the basis for this publication.
The monograph examines over four hundred pieces created by artists from the Peterhof, Ekaterinburg and Kolyvan Imperial lapidary workshops as well as lesser known private ateliers in Saint Petersburg and Ekaterinburg such Philipot, Maderni, the Demidoff malachite workshop, Hesserich and Woerffel, Lagutyaev, Stebakov and others.  The history of the transfer of works abroad is examined within the context of major events of the 18th through the early 20th centuries including political rapprochement and alliances, the signing of treaties, dynastic unions and other occasions. 
The author’s definition of “malachite diplomacy” is not limited to production using this stone alone. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to the historical transfer of carved pieces in other colored stones from the Urals and Siberia such as jaspers, rhodonite, porphyry, quartzite and further specimens. 
The book opens with a brief overview of the history of stone-cutting in Russia. The main body covers the spread of Russian stone pieces around the world, listed by country.  These sections are based on the modern political map and then further defined by their historic regions.  Thus, the chapter on Germany is subdivided into Prussia, Wurttemberg, Bavaria and others. 
The scope of the text is not limited to Europe – which admittedly featured as Russia’s principle diplomatic partner in the 19th century.  Lesser known cases of “malachite diplomacy” in Asia (Turkey, Iran, Japan and China), America (USA, Mexico) and Australia are also covered. 
Ludmila Budrina is uniquely qualified to present both the supply and demand for Russian lapidary works thanks to her undisputed knowledge of the material covered. Her ability to trace the complex trajectories of each case study is bolstered by her facility with foreign languages. This allowed unrestricted access to an international network of experts and extensive research in foreign archives and collection.
At times, the author drew on detective methodology to uncover pieces preserved in museum vaults or hidden in private collections and distills this for us in a clearly presented, beautifully illustrated volume. The result is a uniquely fascinating history of the dissemination of Russian stone cutting art, the rich varieties of colored stones available, and their role on the diplomatic stage of the 18th to early 20th centuries.

« La France, maîtresse de maison »: cette expression, tirée d’un vade mecum du ministère des Affaires étrangères, résume la tradition d’accueillir avec attention sur le territoire national les dirigeants étrangers pour quelques jours. Généralisées à partir de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, ces visites d’État, au sommet du protocole diplomatique, imposent – entre les entretiens bilatéraux, les dîners officiels, les discours et les visites culturelles – que la République assure le logement de ses hôtes dans des résidences alliant prestige, sécurité et confort. À partir de 1959, par décision du général de Gaulle, ce rôle est dévolu au Grand Trianon. Si la renaissance du palais de marbre rose dans les années 1960 est bien connue – notamment grâce à l’ouverture en 1999 par décision de Jacques Chirac de l’aile de Trianon-sous-Bois, autrefois attribuée à la présidence de la République, et à l’exposition « Un président chez le Roi » en 2016 – les aménagements réalisés dans l’aile sud afin de recevoir les chefs d’État n’avaient, jusqu’à présent, jamais été remis en lumière .

This other is available at e-Publications@Marquette: http://epublications.marquette.edu/haggerty_catalogs /18 ... Russian Imperial Porcelain from the Raymond F. Piper Collection June 1 - August 19, 2001 ... Organized by the Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette ...

In the 19th century stone-cutting art has become one of the brightest elements in the representation of the Russian Empire. World’s fairs provided ample opportunities for this representation. The article examines the structure of the collections and the list of the exhibitors at one of the largest fairs — The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The paper draws upon both published and archival documents, including those which have not yet been used for the examination of the representation of Russia’s stone art at this exhibition. It reconstructs mineralogical, technical and typological diversity of the exhibited items and the principle of reciprocal completing of the exhibitors. It also
analyzes the items presented by the imperial Petergof, Ekaterinburg lapidary and Kolyvan grinding factories, by Carl Woerffel’s enterprise and a wide range of small Ural producers as well. Due to the discovery of archival materials, a number of items, exhibited in Chicago, was identified in the museum collections in Russia and abroad. Some attributional details for the exhibited Woerffel items are offered which made it possible to propose the authorship and dating for the items from
Russian and foreign collections. The author is also the first to analyze the collection, purchased at the exhibition from the Russian stonecutters for The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. A conclusion is drawn about the role of the coloured stones items and the importance of their presentation for the formation of the Russian Empire’s image as one of the most important world centers of the decorative stones development.

Proust has shown little interest in the decorative arts of his time, but his work bears the mark of the "submarine style" distinctive of Art nouveau. The low bookshelves with glass panes in the Grand Hôtel room at Balbec ― the symbol of À la Recherche’s unity, according to Georges Poulet in Proustian Space ― prove to be authentic witnesses of “modern style”. But what does “modern style” actually mean? À la Recherche includes five occurrences of the expression that could lead to misunderstanding. Contrary to a preconceived idea, it is not the English name for Art nouveau. This French coined anglicism refers to the international revival of the decorative arts at the beginning of the twentieth century, a fascinating but disturbing blend of aesthetics and social ideas. Proust detected at once and discreetly highlighted the cosmopolitan and "rastaquouère" (so to speak "métèque") inspiration of an ephemeral artistic movement contemporary with the Dreyfus affair. Enriched with an abundant and entirely original iconography, full of new discoveries and identifications, Rastaquarium brings back to life an epoch of which the novelist caught the essence. For the first time the whole question of decorative arts in À la recherche is fully tackled in all its ramifications, in a fascinating instance of the network of connections at the heart of Proust’s system.

Proust n’a manifesté que bien peu d’intérêt pour les arts décoratifs de son temps, mais son œuvre ponctuée d’aquariums est marquée par le «style sous-marin» caractéristique de l’Art nouveau. Les «bibliothèques vitrées» de la chambre de Balbec ― dans lesquelles Georges Poulet voyait le symbole de l’unité de l’œuvre ― se révèlent d’authentiques témoins du «modern style». Mais qu’est-ce que le «modern style»? L’expression, qui revient cinq fois dans À la Recherche du temps perdu, n’avait jamais vraiment été élucidée. Contrairement à une idée reçue, ce n’est en rien le nom anglais de l’Art nouveau. Cet anglicisme bien français désigne un renouveau international des arts décoratifs qui, mêlant esthétique et idées sociales, fascine et inquiète… Proust a parfaitement perçu et discrètement mis en valeur l’inspiration cosmopolite et «rastaquouère» d’un courant artistique dont le bref épanouissement coïncide avec les années de l’affaire Dreyfus. Enrichi d’une vaste iconographie, entièrement originale, fourmillant de trouvailles et d’identifications nouvelles, Rastaquarium fait revivre une époque dont l’écrivain a su capter l’essentiel. Toujours abordée de façon fragmentaire, la question des arts décoratifs dans la Recherche n’avait jamais été traitée dans son ensemble, seule manière de saisir les réseaux de correspondances si chers à Proust.


Table of Contents

Note sur l’iconographie – Remerciements – Abréviations

Rastaquarium

Qu’est-ce que l’Art « nouveau » ?

Le « modern style » n’est pas un style

Naissance d’une expression

Le mobilier des Proust

Le monde de Liberty

Contre Ruskin

1905 : « Sur la lecture »

La Femme inconnue de Lille et le Printemps par « Brown »

Le moment Maple

Bing !

Le « modern style » dans la Recherche

Les bibliothèques vitrées de Balbec

De la référence anglaise à la référence bavaroise : le Salon d’Automne de 1910

Style « sous-marin »

Le Royaume de Neptune ou la civilisation de l’aquarium

Le « modern style », agent de l’étranger

L’esthétique dreyfusarde

Siegfried n’est pas Samuel

Le règne de l’impur

Le style franco-sémitique

Une nouvelle croisade

Dreyfusards avant Dreyfus

Style rastaquouère

Bibliographie - Index nominum - Table des illustrations

La Malmaison, résidence favorite de Joséphine jusqu’à son dernier souffle, reste si indissociablement liée à son destin et à sa personnalité qu’aucun lieu n’en conserve une mémoire plus vive. Tombée sous le charme de la demeure dès 1798, la vicomtesse et bientôt impératrice n’eut de cesse de l’acquérir et de l’aménager à son goût, laissant s’y déployer la passion de ses jardins, l’amour de ses collections et ce merveilleux art de vivre qui fut l’un de ses plus grands talents.

Napoléon III, le dernier monarque à avoir habité le château de Fontainebleau a laissé une trace brillante dans « la demeure des siècles » Avec son épouse, l’Impératrice Eugénie, tout au long de vingt années de présence, le plus souvent estivale, il a agrandi, enrichi, embelli le Palais et ses collections.
Nicolas Personne, diplômé de troisième cycle de l’Ecole du Louvre, spécialiste du Second Empire, retrace dans le nouveau dossier des Amis du château de Fontainebleau l’histoire, encore trop méconnue, des séjours de cette Cour joyeuse et raffinée.

Knjiga govori o povijesti građevnog sklopa Velike stancije u Savudriji, zvane još i vila Cesare. Riječ je je ladanjsko-gospodarskom zdanju podignutom u 19. stoljeću, kojeg čini velika palača s tornjem te gospodarski objekti, danas većinom u ruševnom stanju. Knjiga se temelji na povijesnim i konzervatorsko-restauratorskim istraživanjima, provedenima u svrhu obnove stancije. Razmatra se povijest vlasnika kroz arhivske dokumente, građevni razvoj stancije, arhitektonske značajke i regionalni kontekst izgradnje. U prvom dijelu obrađuje se vlasnička kronologija stancije koja se iščitava iz arhivskih zapisa te kartografskih i drugih prikaza. Analiza građevinskih struktura pokazala je da je stancija građena u više faza. Prva faza predstavlja zapravo raniju građevinu, čiji su elementi sačuvani u zanemarivoj mjeri, a druga se datira u sredinu 19. stoljeća, kada stancija dolazi u vlasništvo piranskog plemića Angela Fabrisa, koji ondje uspostavlja imanje za uzgoj dudova svilca. Podiže ladanjsku stambenu palaču (vilu), veliku staju i svilogojsku manufakturu. Godine 1877. vlasnikom postaje tršćanski brodovlasnik i industrijalac Carlo Cesare koji znatno nadograđuje palaču i podiže visoki toranj u karakterističnom stilu gotico quadrato, nadahnut dvorcem Miramare i zgradom arsenala Lloyd Triestino u Trstu. Cesare kontinuirano obnavlja stanciju te ondje uređuje i raskošni ladanjski vrt. U kontekstu prostornih i oblikovnih značajki stancije, detaljno se razmatra njezino unutrašnje uređenje, u svjetlu novopronađenih dekorativnih zidnih slika s kraja 19. i početka 20. stoljeća, a kojima su, u više navrata, bile oslikane brojne prostorije. Ističu se kompozicije vegetabilnih ornamenata i arabeski, zatim oslici koji oponašaju izgled tapeta, dok su posve osebujni prikazi groteski na stropu spavaće sobe u tornju, s prizorima zmijolikih zmajeva i urni sa ženskim glavama, nastali početkom 20. stoljeća. Knjiga također govori o stilskim osobinama arhitekture stancije i stilu gotico quadrato u okviru regionalne arhitekture, te primjerima iz osobito referentnog područja Istre i Furlanije. U zaključku se utvrđuje loše današnje stanje stancije i perspektive za obnovu.

Thanks to the lawyer Edmond Picard, who founded the ground breaking art gallery La Maison d'Art in Brussels, applied arts received a lot of attention in Belgium from the 1890s onwards. As a result, many leading figures from the art nouveau movement-including Henry van de Velde, Alfred William Finch, Omer Coppens, Arthur Craco and Isidore De Rudder-became interested in ceramics. Their work, often strongly influenced by the old Flemish rustic production, received a lot of attention at world exhibitions and in the avant-garde art magazines. Poterie Flamande pottery from the Céramiques de Courtrai (1898-1926), led by the engineer Pieter-Jozef Laigneil, also occupied an important position and was sold in the famous luxury store Liberty in London and even in New York. We discuss Belgian art nouveau ceramics for the years 1890-1914 as shown at ground breaking exhibitions of Les XX and La Libre Esthétique.

En el periodo modernista encontramos el uso de la vidriera artística no sólo como ornamento de la arquitectura religiosa o institucional sino también como elemento decorativo dentro del espacio doméstico. Los interiores de las casas se decorarán con hermosas vidrieras emplomadas y vidrios al ácido en ventanas y puertas, asimismo se normaliza su uso como ornamento de muebles. Los más prestigiosos talleres de ebanistería de ese periodo utilizarán esta técnica artística ejecutada por las principales empresas de vidrieras del momento. En este texto se pretende realizar una primera reflexión sobre el uso de la vidriera artística como ornamento en el mobiliario modernista.

During the Art Nouveau period we find the use of stained glass not only as an ornament of religious or institutional architecture but also as a decorative element within the domestic space. The interiors of the houses were decorated with beautiful windows and doors ornamented with stained glasses and glass etching, as well as their use as a furniture adornment was normalized. The most prestigious cabinetmaking workshops of that period used this artistic technique executed by the main stained glass companies of that time. The aim of the following text is to make a first reflection about the use of artistic stained glass as an ornament in Art Nouveau furniture.

In the 1890s the political and artistic ambitions of the neo-impressionist artist Paul Signac were embodied by a series of decorative projects. This article contends that Signac, inspired by anarcho-communist discourse and the prospect of revolution, attempted to synthesize in these works the didactic logic of propaganda and "purely aesthetic emotion." This synthesis was epitomized by the explicit deployment of two systems, divisionism and decorative pattern. With these systems, Signac hoped to initiate contemporary viewers into the aesthetic and social harmony of an anarcho-communist future. In the interest of addressing larger audiences, particularly among workers, he imagined proletarian spaces for his work. But the didactic elements of Signac's painting met with critical resistance, and public sites he envisioned never materialized. Faced with this lack of recognition, and with a diminished revolutionary outlook in the wake of the Procès des Trente, Signac focused his painting on atemporal landscapes. This trajectory has been read as one of aesthetic liberation; this article seeks to retrieve the extent to which it was also one of constraint, tied to the frustration of Signac's political aspirations.

Mercedes Gallagher de Parks (1942). La escultura costumbrista y popular en piedra de Huamanga (Estudio leído ante el XXVII Congreso de Americanistas reunido en Lima, 1939). Librería e Imprenta Gil. «Nota introductoria» de la «Sección fuentes para el estudio del arte latinoamericano» por Daniel Vifian López (ver: Palacio de la Exposición en Lima (1872), de Thomas Joseph Hutchinson).

The chapel of St Peter and Paul in Zagreb`s central cemetery Mirogoj belongs to a group of the most interesting sacral buildings erected in Croatia`s capital at the end of the 19th century. It is one of the first monumental mausoleums ever built outside the Mirogoj`s arcades and one of the fi nest works by the architect Herman Bollé in his version of the neo-Byzantine style. It was erected in 1891 to serve as lieutenant general Petar Kukulj`s mausoleum by his widow Judita. Petar Kukulj was an Austro Hungarian field-marshal. Since such mausoleums were used by a small number of worshippers, there was no need to make them large. Moreover, the locations where they were going to be built were often very limited in order to leave more space for the cemetery. Therefore, during historicism such cemetery chapels were often erected as centrally planned buildings whether the mausoleums in question were Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical or Jewish. Hence, Bollé was provided with an opportunity to practice designing centrally planned neo-Byzantine buildings. Since he had been working for the Orthodox Church he was mostly compelled to restore earlier buildings and build new ones of a longitudinal plan which could facilitate a greater number of believers. On those churches he hadn’t had a chance to build domes. The chapel of St Peter and Paul at Mirogoj cemetery is one of the Bollé`s most signifi cant neo-Byzantine centrally planned domed buildings. Looking at his work, we can see that Bollé`s neo-Byzantine style is infl uenced by Byzantine, Romanesque and even Renaissance elements. He also found a great inspiration in late Rundbogenstil (Round-arch style) of Berlin architecture of the 1860s and 1870s. Orthodox bishop Miron Nikolić commended his work in the chapel and it seems that it had convinced him to entrust Bollé with a comprehensive renovation work on his cathedral in Pakrac, as well as some other buildings in Pakrac eparchy (parish church in Bjelovar for example). Thanks to his work on Kukulj chapel and renovation work on parish church of Transfi guration in Zagreb, Bolle was later commissioned to renovate the Orthodox monastery Grgeteg on Fruška Gora, and the Church of Holy Spirit, Ruma, and so on. Immediately after the work in the chapel of St Peter and Paul was fi nished, the walls were painted and the interior was furnished. Zagreb Crafts School professor Josip Bauer is the author of all decorations on the walls and icons on the iconostasis. All the icons were made on a gold background showing Bauer`s relation to the Byzantine art of drawing. The author attended the Academy in Munich. Therefore, compositions of his works are inherently in correlation with the tradition of western painting but there is also a very strong infl uence of the Nazarenes. Bauer was obviously familiar with the orthodox iconography which resulted in numerous commissions by the Orthodox Church in Croatia. The position of icons on the iconostasis follows the usual rules of the Orthodox Church, but still there are some differences. In the bottom line we can see Annunciation in imperial court with icons of enthroned Christ and Virgin by its side. On the side doors we can see Michael the Archangel and Gabriel the Archangel. Saint Peter and Paul, to whom the chapel is dedicated, are painted on the left end of the row and Saint John the Baptist is on the right end. Two central rows of icons on the iconostasis depict the scenes from the life of Christ and Virgin Mary. The top of the iconostasis shows the prophets painted in round medallions and in the central axis we see the crucifixion of the Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist) painted above the icons showing the Holy Trinity and God the Father. Herman Bolle is the author of the design for the iconostasis as well as the entire chapel project. The estimated cost of the chapel was 14.000 forints (28.000 krones) which was a substantial amount in that time.

Georges De Geetere (1859-1929) was een begaafd kunstschilder die op vele andere terreinen actief werd. Zo specialiseerde hij zich in frescoschilderen, een techniek die mede door zijn inspanningen opnieuw een zekere bloei kende. Verder werd hij de opvolger van Théophile Fumière als artistiek directeur bij Boch Frères in La Louvière. Daar maakte hij niet alleen prachtige ontwerpen voor siervazen en schotels, maar ook heel wat grote decoratieve tegelpanelen en zelfs sculpturen. Hij begeleidde er ook de jonge Charles Catteau - nu wereldberoemd - die hem later als artistiek directeur opvolgde van bij diens aankomst in La Louvière. In dit artikel wordt zijn cruciale rol in de evolutie van Boch Frères rond 1900 voor het eerst naar voor gebracht en wordt in de hier bijgevoegde gelegenheidstoespraak uit 1999 ook zijn verdere carrière belicht.

Resenha do Livro "Azulejaria em Belém do Pará: Inventário Arquitetura Civil e Religiosa - século XVIII ao XX" publicado em 2016 pela editora do IPHAN e organizado pelas autoras Dora Monteiro e Silva de Alcântara, Thaís Alessandra Bastos Caminha Sanjad e Stella Regina Soares de Brito. Publicação: Revista Restauro v.2 n.4

Link: http://web.revistarestauro.com.br/o-patrimonio-azulejar-de-belem-do-para-e-seu-inventario/

The essay investigates Siegfried Bing’s (1838–1905) connections with Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933). After traveling to America in 1894, Bing succeeded in obtaining exclusive rights to Tiffany’s works in Europe. On that occasion, the German-born, Paris-based art merchant convinced Tiffany to make eleven stained-glass windows for Bing’s showroom after the cartoons designed by some of the most outstanding painters of the Nabis group: Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton, Edouard Vuillard, Albert Besnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and the designers P.A. Isaac-Dathis
and Eugène Grasset. This essay reconsiders contents and contexts of such commissions: the role of Bing as patron and dealer, not only in terms of marketing strategies and opportunities but also in the broadest analysis of his promotion of modern style in Europe. Artists’ ideas and iconographies
are discussed as a coherent attempt of "œuvre d’art totale" and related to poetics and politics proper of French symbolism, thus connecting visual and iconographical imagery in stained glass.

To my mind the most significant book on Jewish ceremonial art ever published, Narkiss' breadth and vision is still unsurpassed.  This is copied from the copy at UC Berkeley, the same copy that I read as an undergraduate during the 1970's.

Hebrew with extensive English summary.

This paper analyses the section dedicated to furniture
in the Luis Rigalt Album and compares it with similar
contemporary publications. In the two volumes of
1857 and 1859, the author offers his artistic knowledge
at the service of Spanish industrialists interested in
competing in the international market for luxury
products. He proposes drawings of furniture in vogue in
well-off interiors, focusing on those of quality and rich
in ornamentation, for him, synonymous with beauty.
Some of his drawings are inspired by furniture, that he
himself designed for Queen Isabel II, still preserved
today.

Frederic Leighton’s Holland Park home, a collaboration with George Aitchison, William De Morgan, and Walter Crane, was one of London’s most famous nineteenth-century orientalist interiors. Built between 1877 and 1879, Leighton’s Arab Hall houses historic tiles of exceptional quality from İznik, Damascus, and Persia, distinguishing his orientalist project from the homes of his peers.

The Arab Hall was conceived as a gesamstkunstwerk, a secular aestheticist fantasy of suspended time in which historic Near Eastern craft production was synthesized into an harmonious aesthetic present tense. De Morgan undertook the challenge of replicating tile fragments to repair some of these historic panels. In doing so, he submitted to an apprenticeship across time, as the products of his kiln were answerable to the superb precedents of Near Eastern master craftsmen. But the dislocation of these historic tiles is often legible in their fragmentary remnants and scarred surfaces. In this article, Roberts addresses the ways in which this obdurate materiality posed an impediment to an aesthetics of synthesis.

This article focuses on the study of the decorative and applied art of the 19th century — the issue of attribution of authorship in the conditions of borrowing and transfer of taste, active cross-cultural contacts, the cosmopolitan art of the neostyle period, and the establishment of the industrial reproduction of decorative objects based on the principle of replication of a sample. This paper considers a specific source of borrowing (L’art industriel, an engraved album of Leon Feuchère’s drawings, 1839) and the interpretation of three samples from this illustrated edition by Russian masters of stonecutting of the second half of the 19th century. The authors compare the approach towards the original in the works of the Malachite factory of the Demidov family (1847–1851) and the Imperial Kolyvan Polishing Factory, carried out in the 1870s according to the designs of Ivan A. Zlobin. The pieces of art analysed in this article are kept in the Royal Collection of Great Britain (for the first time in history, the authors provide information about two works of Russian masters in the collection), in the Mineralogical Museum of Alexander E. Fersman of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), and Hotêl de Ville (Paris). Additionally, the authors consider sources from the library of Institut national de l’histoire de l’art (Paris, Doucet collection) and the collection of the Ministry of the Imperial Court of the Russian State Historical Archive (St Petersburg). Having analysed the aforementioned sources and compared them with graphic prototypes, the authors conclude that it is necessary to complete the existing attribution of the authors of stonecutting works with data about the original artworks. Referring to particular examples, the authors prove that it is impossible to only rely on a narrowly national approach to the history of Russian stonecutting art and that this art should be studied in the European context.

The content of this monograph on the Djakovo cathedral is concentrated on its interior - frescoes, sculptures, altars, furnishings. The content of some frescoes in the cathedral reflects the political ideology of Bishop Strossmayer. The book was edited by Mr. Žorž Draušnik.

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of five products of two fac-tories - Demidoff’s malachite factory and Imperial Peterhof lapidary factory – cre-ated fellow a single model in the 1847-1856. The aim of the study is an introduction to the scientific field the information about recently discovered works, their reliable attributions based on documentary sources and confirmed with previously identi-fied signs of attribution (material, character of the mosaic). In the article, we actual-ize the problems of the same time participation of foreign specialist in the work of public and private companies in Russia; we affect some aspects of the exposure of Russian works at the London World Exhibition in 1851. The identification of mas-terpieces in museums and private collections in Europe required a study of the market of applied art of the mid-end of the XIX century through archival docu-ments, periodicals of the time, recent publication of museum collections, as well as previous studies carried out by the author. All the work in question was a object of careful studies: we have made stylistic, technical and technological analysis, materi-al studies of the pieces. A comparison of the details of products, time and place of their creation, it becomes obvious the using of a single model; limited time of using of showy, but very expensive technology of mosaic; established tradition of using certain kind of malachite (relativity light, speckled with turquoise and contrasting pattern) for works in the style of the second Rococo. This publication summarizes a six-year search for malachite pieces from Russian department of the first World Exhibition (London, 1851), created on the malachite factory of Demidoff in St. Pe-tersburg in 1847-1851.

Il percorso della conoscenza, condotto attraverso la lettura dell’architettura e l’analisi delle fonti documentarie, consente di delineare la storia evolutiva del compendio immobiliare di proprietà dello Stato, sito alle Fondamente Nuove, in Venezia, dall’inizio dei Seicento – epoca della sua costruzione - ad oggi.
Vengono analizzate le modificazioni intervenute nel corso del tempo, dalla genesi dell’insula alle trasformazioni novecentesche, messe in relazione con le occupazioni e funzioni del compendio, anche attraverso una lettura strutturale della fabbrica. In una delle fasi – seppur breve – si colloca la “Kunsthaus Franz Naager”, manifattura artistica del primo Novecento a Venezia, testimone della produzione e del fiorente commercio d'arte e di arredi in stile.
Franz Naager (1870 – 1942) fu architetto, imprenditore, pittore, artista poliedrico, antiquario e collezionista di opere d’arte. La sua manifattura, secondo la storiografia attiva a Venezia tra il 1901 e il 1913, era dedita alla produzione di decorazioni in stile – in pietra, stucco, terracotta, carta decorata e carta da parati stampata, stencil, ecc. – e avrebbe impiegato circa 200 operai.
Le tracce visibili nella fabbrica (formelle marmoree a pavimento e parete, porte rivestite in lamiera punzonata e decorata, decorazioni policrome su travi e pareti) e le numerose fonti documentarie consultate hanno consentito di delineare meglio la figura dell’eclettico artista ancora poco conosciuto, riportandoci al clima culturale internazionale dell’epoca e ai rapporti tra la “Kunsthaus Franz Naager” con le più eminenti personalità del panorama artistico e culturale tedesco, tra cui l’illustre scrittore Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865-1910), gli architetti Theodor Fischer (1862-1938), Alfred Messel (1853-1909), Gabriel von Seidl (1848 –1913), Ludwig Hoffmann (1852-1932); ma ci consentono anche una divagazione nel panorama veneziano delle manifatture artistiche, del collezionismo e commercio antiquario dell’epoca, o ancora su altre figure legate a Naager, quali la musicista Nice Della Rovere, lo scrittore Antonio Della Rovere, il poeta e critico d’arte Benno Geiger.
Non meno densa si rivela la storia successiva alla confisca dell’immobile dopo il primo conflitto bellico quale bene appartenente ai sudditi ex-nemici della guerra: dopo una temporanea gestione a cura dell’Opera Nazionale Combattenti, l’immobile confluirà del patrimonio dello Stato e sarà utilizzato come officina delle matrici zincografiche per la riproduzione delle mappe catastali e relativi archivi, fino alla recente dismissione.
Nella valutazione delle vocazioni della fabbrica, particolare attenzione viene riservata ai solai nei quali struttura e architettura si fondono, conservando sia all’intradosso che all’estradosso ampie superfici decorate: l’individuazione di soluzioni per il miglioramento strutturale di ridotta invasività vengono individuate ricercando nella tradizione. Le criticità connesse invece alle labilità strutturali conseguenti al degrado degli originali dispositivi di trattenuta delle facciate vengono affrontate riproponendo nuovi presidi tali da mantenere inalterato il principio della “scatola muraria controventata”, propria del costruito storico veneziano.
La conoscenza della fabbrica, della tradizione architettonica costruttiva, delle peculiarità storiche ed artistiche, con il loro potente potere evocativo, costituiscono l’imprescindibile premessa per la definizione del programma di restauro e valorizzazione.

In 1868 renowned Sienese carver Pietro Giusti (1822-1873) took an important commission from the City of Turin, for the design of a small golden chest, a marriage gift for Princess Margherita di Savoia, which is now lost. The discovery of some drawings for the small chest in Turin and Siena gives the opportunity to analyze this important item, and is a chance for a preliminary enquiry on Giusti's little-known activity in Turin, not only as an artist, but also as a scholar and as a teacher for the Regio Museo Industriale Italiano.