About this book
Overview
"This book has already been purchased by Harvard, The Getty Museum, The Frick Museum, and others. Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel has brought together a treasure trove of micromosaics contributed by an international group of private collectors. This scholarly and beautiful art book is illustrated with over 250 large, high-resolution color photos of micromosaics, most of them never before published. The range of examples from jewellery to pictures to extravagant tabletops will excite every level of collector. In addition, Sotheby's has allowed the author to reprint several essays she wrote for their most important micromosaic sales, including a table which set a world auction record in 2011, selling for almost two million dollars. The introduction paints a fascinating picture of the difficulties faced two centuries ago by travelers to Rome. Colorful stories relate how mosaics were acquired by early English, American, Continental and Russian collectors, from young aristocrats on the Grand Tour to powerful monarchs. The influence of Russians as patrons of mosaics is shown to be of particular significance. Historical accounts describe the Vatican Mosaic Workshop and the technique of making mosaics. Resources previously unavailable have produced an encyclopedic wealth of new research on mosaic artists, making this an essential reference book for dealers and auction houses. An essay on Michelangelo Barberi reveals his long-term romance with a Russian princess. The complete designs from Barberi's 1856 book are illustrated. Also included are a list of mosaics in the Hermitage and Demidoff collections. Biographies of the most important mosaicists enumerate their known mosaic works. More than two hundred sixty mosaic artists from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are documented. The author has made this book encyclopedic in scope to provide an essential reference for dealers and collectors."--from frontcover flap
