Proprieta Cav. Uff. Pasquale d’Amelio, Napoli, n.d. [1886].
Large folio [630 x 445 mm], (1) l., ix pp., 20 pp. of text and 20 numbered chromolithographs. Some slight foxing. Preserved in sheets, as issued, in the editor’s portfolio.
A rare work dedicated to Pompeian wall paintings discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The text that comes with the plates is printed in two parallel columns, both in Italian and in French, and the Italian preface was written by Giulio de Petra.The magnificent illustration consists of 20 large chromolithographs produced after the Italian architect Edoardo Cerillo and engraved by Vincenzo Loria (1850-1939). They represent: la Maison de la Princesse Marguerite, la Maison de Vedius Siricus, la Maison de la petite fontaine en mosaïque, la Maison d’Arianne ou des chapiteaux colorés, la Maison d’Arianne abandonnée, la Maison de Marc Lucrèce, la Maison de la paroi noire, la Maison du poète tragique, la Maison de Castor et Pollux, la Maison d’Orphée, la Panthéon, la Maison du notaire, la Maison de Salluste, la Maison d’Apollon, la Maison de Vedius Siricus, la Maison de la Reine d’Italie, la Maison d’Elpidius Sabinus, la Maison d’Adonis, la Maison du Decumanus Maior, les Thermes Stabianes.
“The 20 large plates finished last year by Richter & Co., of Naples, and issued by Cavalier Pasqualé d’Amelio, with Italian and French comments in parallel columns, bring into prominence the architectonic side of Pompeiian wall painting. The colors are very close to the originals during the first days of their recovery from the darkness of 2000 years, before the hot Neapolitan sun has bleached some of the pigments and induced a delicacy of tone which was not meant by the painters. The text is written by an architect, Edoardo Cerillo, who is not only well read in the great literature that deals with this famous little buried town, but has ideas of his own, and bold ones. He calls attention to the value of these compositions, invented to give variety and change to plain walls, not so much for their artistic beauty as for the lessons they contain concerning the architecture of Rome, Greece and the Orient. Hence the publication is of special interest to the architect and decorative artist; for to the one it shows the variety and grace of buildings now impossible to reconstruct from any other sources, and to the other the possibility of introducing bold and beautiful effects on blank walls by the use of colors. The 20 plates in chromo-lithography, together with ample descriptive and critical text, appears in large, loose sheets in a portfolio, cost $75 a set, and form a limited edition. If the publisher receives encouragement here the American edition will be 100 copies”. (The New York Times, 20 juin 1887).
No copy of this work is recorded in ABPC.
A precious handsome volume of special interest to the architect and decorative artist.
