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Item Number: 111634
Title: Dagli splendori di Corte al lusso borghese : L'Opificio delle Pietre Dure nell'Italia Unita
Author: Giusti, Annamaria ; Clarice Innocenti
Price: Not Available
ISBN: 9788883476044
Description: Livorno: Sillabe, 2011. 28cm., pbk., 256pp. illus., 260 color plates. Exhibition held at Galleria d'arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti, Firenze. Summary: The exhibition is linked to the initiatives organised to celebrate 150 years of Italian unity. It focuses on a specific subject at once Florentine and international: that of the new phase in the life of the brilliant artistic manufactory – which had flourished for three centuries in the shadow of the Grand Ducal court of Tuscany – that opened up after 1861, making it famous all over Europe for its peerless creations in semi-precious stones. It was with the advent of the Kingdom of Italy that the ancient Galleria dei Lavori, founded by the Medici, shifted its status from a workshop at the exclusive service of the court to open up to the market and offer its consistently outstanding creations to a wealthy private clientele, which also included royal commissioners such as the Tsar of Russia and Ludwig II of Bavaria. Even when they were destined to the up-and-coming bourgeois class, the creations produced by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in the last decades of the nineteenth century were distinguished by the lavish materials used and the technical expertise, the invaluable legacy of the ancient Florentine commesso. Wall panels, table tops, caskets, sculptures in semi-precious stone and furnishing accessories – which were regularly displayed at the International Expos, starting from that celebrating the unification of Italy held in Florence in 1861 – captivated spectators through the splendid colours of the rare stones, arranged with dextrous pictorial skill, and by the decorative inventions attuned to the artistic taste of the time. This taste was expressed through the applied arts as it was through painting and sculpture, which are also represented in the exhibition by examples that illustrate the artistic fabric within which the ancient manufactory worked, under the new name of Opificio delle Pietre Dure. The pieces produced by the Opificio were in their turn an almost inevitable benchmark for the private workshops of Florentine mosaic spawned in its wake, which enjoyed great success with the public and at the Expos. For the exhibition a selection of the most significant productions has been made, some of which even met with the favour of Victor Emanuel II, who purchased them for the Pitti Palace. The exhibition is the first devoted to the latest phase in the artistic activity of the Opificio, to date somewhat overlooked by the studies and shows devoted to its multisecular history, and points up a luminous sunset which was anything but a decline. An elite art, proudly faithful to its great tradition, represented by the prototypes that open the exhibition, the semi-precious stone commesso would not and could not adapt to the demands of the market. By the end of the century the Opificio chose to direct its treasure of unrivalled manual expertise and the innovative technologies introduced in the workshop – also documented in the exhibition – to the emerging demands in the area of conservation of the Italian artistic heritage.
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