Intaglio - ' Mary'

Details

• Les Cires de Bassompierre
• Three handmade plaster Intaglios, painted black, two depicting a man and one Mary with child.
  
• Wooden octagonal canvas covered with wallpaper by Cole & Son
  
• Brass ring included
• 14 x 20 cm

Les Cires de Bassompierre tells you THE STORY OF INTAGLIOS on their website as follows:

What is an intaglio, you may ask? To understand intaglios, we need to travel back in time to the ca 150 years spanning the Neo-Classical revival: the 17th- to the mid 19th Century. This was a time when the European aristocracy would travel around Europe (Paris, Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples, Sicilly...) with a view to becoming Classically educated. The period coincides with the rise in enthusiasm for collecting, with Grand Tourists helping themselves to statues ("marbles"), paintings and all sorts of artifacts, filling their coffers as they travelled along. Intaglios, plaster medallions depicting scenes from Greek and Roman Antiquity, became the standard tourist-shop item to take home.

We have decided to create our own little Neo-Classical revival by teaming up with plaster makers in Italy to create intaglio-artifacts. These are sent to us in Amsterdam, where we use them to create intaglio-plates: decorative wall hangings in a variety of colours and textures.

Each item is handmade and entirely unique.

Hang it with or without a velvet ribbon; or place it in a bookshelf, along with other collected artifacts.