3 panels, Italy, 16th/17th century

The three ornately carved panels, painted in bright colours, are made in cartapesta. The technique of cartapesta was developed in Italy in the 16th century and is particularly well known in Lecce, an Apulian town, but may have had its antecedents in Naples. It is a type of papier-mâché where the paper is soaked in binder, then ground, pressed, and finally applied. Here, clay models and plaster cast negatives are often used, with the paper being pressed into the mould and later attached to the final structure. The final layer is dried and covered with a layer of plaster glue. Then the details are sculptured out, with the surface receiving a waterproof coating, making the final result look like wood, stucco or even marble. Several workshops were built in Lecce, and this technique was used in numerous sacred and courtly buildings. The papier-mâché replaced stucco as a material for ceiling and wall decorations (e.g. in Santa Chiara in Lecce), with three panels of such luxurious interior decoration preserved here. 

These panels are adorned with dynamically curved, volute-shaped tendril formations that are symmetrically arranged around a central stem. This pattern shows two different flowers with acanthus-like foliage, always arranged as a pair of opposites: a bluish flower and a conical white and gold one. Flanking these and also inscribed in tendrils are small dragon creatures excitedly flapping their spread and serrated wings. The green tendrils stand out spectacularly against the bold red background due to their sculptural design and must have originally contributed to the colourful impression of the interior.     

The motifs of the grotesques show great similarity to the engravings of the Ara Pacis by Agostino Veneziano or Agostino dei Musi (c. 1490 - c. 1540) around c. 1535/36 (MET 24.10.16), who borrowed directly from the ornamentation of this important Roman monument. Decorative designs from antiquity were of great importance for the decorative schemes of the 16th century. These panels thus reflect an original richness of form that draws increasingly on ancient models. Another ornamental design by the same artist also shows figurative and zoomorphic (mixed) creatures amidst vines (MET 49.95.42). Agostino Veneziano's engravings after Raphael show equally interesting similarities in the floral forms (MET 24.72.2) and the winged creatures in the centre of the tendrils (MET 24.72.17). A striking example of Raphael's work is the wall decoration of the loggias in the Vatican Palace, completed around 1519, which refer to models of ancient imperial palaces and villas.    

Bibliography:

David Landau & Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print, New Haven 1996. 

Enzo Rossi Ròiss, Cartapesteide, Urbino 2006.