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Your Price: $ 5500.00
Item Number: mos001
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Circa: 1865
Condition: very fine
Size: 2 5/8inch X 5 1/4inch closed
Country of Origin: Italy
Manufacturer: Cesare Roccheggiani
oval gilt brass folding picture frame with micromosaic panel on outside, opening to reveal picture holding area and purple/gold panel with mark of Cesare Roccheggiani, Rome
This may have been attached to a miniature easel at one time by the pin protruding on rear.
Work by Cesare Roccheggiani, Rome was listed in inventory shown at the USA Centennial Exhibit in Fairmont Park, Phila. 1876.
Mosaics were popular with travelers for more than a century. There was, to be sure, some criticism of the fashion. Goethe, for one, was appalled that an ancient art had been ’degraded’ to ornamenting trinkets ’Our times are worse than we think,’ he said. But not every visitor was so disparaging – quite the contrary, in fact. In 1810, when Rome was under French occupation, there were 20 private workshops. In the 1830s, a guidebook listed close to 30, many of them near the Spanish Steps.
Most mosaics were portable souvenirs that could be packed in a traveler''s trunk.
Cesare Roccheggiani is presumably the member of the family of mosaicists whose name is recorded in the lid of the case (see Petochi 1981, p. 69), since he is the only member with the initial 'C'. The only published document referring to Cesare is dated 1859, when he is mentioned in a bill of payment in the archives of the Vatican Mosaic Factory at St Peter's. He was probably related to Lorenzo and Nicola Roccheggiani, mosaicists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and Antonio Roccheggiani, who gained medals at the London exhibition of 1851 and the Paris exhibition of 1855. According to the Artistical Directory, Rome, 1856, Antonio's shop was at 7 Piazza di Spagna. The 1874 Guida Monaci lists C. Roccheggiani at 14-15 via Condotti, whereas Murray's Handbook to Rome of 1875 lists Roccheggiani with no initial under 'Mosaicists' as at 14 via Condotti. In the 1888 edition 'Roccheggiani' is described as selling also 'gold ornaments from antique patterns', while the Guida Commerciale di Roma of 1900 shows that the Roccheggiani premises had expanded to nos 12-15 via Condotti.
These small mosaics were sold to foreigners visiting Rome; hence the popularity of tourist motifs. Scenes of ancient ruins were especially popular. A view of the Colosseum, which was made by Cesare Roccheggiani during the second half of the 19th century, is representative of this taste. So precise is the mosaic that is possible to look through the arcades to the see the interior of the Colosseum. By using thousands of tesserae, Rocceggiani also shows the uneven cobblestone road and shadowy foreground. The mosaic plaque measures 11in in diameter; the final bid last winter was $17,455.
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