The shallow relief carved, punched and filled with polychrome waxes is an ornamentation technique that has been poorly investigated. It was used between the beginning of the 15th and the end of the 16th century, particularly in Friuli and Alto Veneto (but with further expansion - even if later - in Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and other Eastern countries). In the almost two centuries in which this technique was employed, we see a progressive change in executive practice that developed in four phases. With the passage of time, an apparent technical ‘simplification’ (abandonment of the carving, replaced by the more immediate punching) was matched by an iconographic enrichment (with the reproposition of historiæ) that could be fully expressed in the use of drawing that, not by chance, was acquiring its own expressive dignity as an autonomous artwork in those years. Among the iconographic motifs used there are those love-themed, taken from classical texts but also from a more strictly courtly gothic repertoire. To this latter field belongs the Personification of Love, which had a discreet fortune in this type of furniture and which does not match in other productions of applied art except - but only partially - in ivory ones.
«Una capsa de ancipresso»: l’intaglio piatto su fondo ribassato fra XV e XVI secolo
Francesco Fratta de Tomas;Maurizio d'Arcano Grattoni
2023-01-01
Abstract
The shallow relief carved, punched and filled with polychrome waxes is an ornamentation technique that has been poorly investigated. It was used between the beginning of the 15th and the end of the 16th century, particularly in Friuli and Alto Veneto (but with further expansion - even if later - in Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and other Eastern countries). In the almost two centuries in which this technique was employed, we see a progressive change in executive practice that developed in four phases. With the passage of time, an apparent technical ‘simplification’ (abandonment of the carving, replaced by the more immediate punching) was matched by an iconographic enrichment (with the reproposition of historiæ) that could be fully expressed in the use of drawing that, not by chance, was acquiring its own expressive dignity as an autonomous artwork in those years. Among the iconographic motifs used there are those love-themed, taken from classical texts but also from a more strictly courtly gothic repertoire. To this latter field belongs the Personification of Love, which had a discreet fortune in this type of furniture and which does not match in other productions of applied art except - but only partially - in ivory ones.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
