Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe

Koeppe, Wolfram, ed., and Anna Maria Giusti with contributions by Cristina Acidini, Rudolf Distelberger, Detlef Heikamp, Jutta Kappel, Florian Knothe, and Ian Wardropper (2008)

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College Art Association Alfred H. Barr Jr. Book Award, Finalist (2008)

Publication Details

Description

In the royal and princely courts of Europe, artworks made of multicolored semiprecious stones were passionately coveted objects. Known as pietre dure, or hardstones, this type of artistic expression includes "paintings in stone"—presenting subjects such as landscapes, townscapes, flowers, birds, and decorative motifs—which were composed of intricately cut separate pieces and were made into magnificent tabletops, cabinets, and wall decorations. Other works are vessels and ornaments carved with virtuosic skill from a single piece of rare and brilliant lapis lazuli, chalcedony, jasper, or similarly prized substance; exquisite objects such as boxes, clocks, and jewelry that employed both the stonecutter's and the goldsmith's art; and portraits of nobles sculpted in variously colored stones. The medium was esteemed beyond most others: for example, Philip II of Spain paid 60 to 200 ducats for paintings by Titian but owned a table ornament of rock crystal valued at 500 ducats.

Derived from ancient Roman decorative stonework, the art of pietre dure was developed in Renaissance Florence, where the manufacture of such objects was enthusiastically sponsored by Medici princes. Ideally suited for ostentatious display, the works sent an unmistakable message of wealth and political might that was understood in center of power everywhere. From Italy the medium spread across Europe—to Prague, Madrid, Naples, Paris, and later Saint Petersburg.

Pietre dure had intellectual and spiritual appeal as well. Symbolic and mysterious meanings were ascribed to some stones. At the same time, in this age of exploration and dawning scientific inquiry, exotic shells, coral, petrified wood, ostrich eggs, and natural "wonders" or all sorts were avidly collected and displayed (in cabinets decorated with hardstones). Works in pietre dure—of natural substances but artfully crafted through human skill and imagination—were seen as a harmonious joining of nature and art.

Precious and fragile, pietre dure objects are rarely brought together in large numbers. The exceptional survey presented in this richly illustrated catalogue contains more than 150 masterworks from across Europe, dating from five centuries. They display almost every artistic use of semiprecious stone during this time and include some of the finest—even legendary—examples of the medium.

Eight essays by European and American experts describe the individualized development of pietre dure in every European region, present the latest developments in scholarship, point out interrelationships between art and dynastic politics and between cultures, and elucidate a variety of techniques by which the works were made.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword
Acknowledgments
The Role of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure
Lenders to the Exhibition
Curators of the Exhibition
Contributors to the Catalogue
Note to the Reader

Mysterious and Prized: Hardstones in Human History before the Renaissance
Wolfram Koeppe

Roman Inlay and Florentine Mosaics: The Art of Pietre Dure
Annamaria Giusti

The Castrucci and the Miseroni: Prague, Florence, Milan
Rudolf Distelberger

Pierres fines: The Manufacture of Hardstone Works at the Gobelins under Louis XIV
Florian Knothe

Pietre Dure North of the Alps
Wolfram Koeppe

Sculpture and Mosaic in Pietre Dure
Ian Wardropper

An Enduring Seductiveness: The Reclaiming of Pietre Dure in the Eighteenth Century
Wolfram Koeppe and Florian Knothe

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure: Half a Millennium
Cristina Acidini

Origins

Italy through the Seventeenth Century

Northern Europe, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Italy and Spain, Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

The Reclaiming of Pietre Dure

Sweden and Russia, Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

Pietre Dure as an Artistic Medium

Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Photograph and Copyright Credits

About the authors

Wolfram Koeppe is Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Annamaria Giusti is Director, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, and former Director, Museo dell'Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence.

Cristina Acidini is Superintendent, Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico and Polo Museale Fiorentino, Florence.

Rudolf Distelberger is Director Emeritus, Kunstkammer, Weltliche und Geistliche Schatzkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Detlef Heikamp is Professor Emeritus, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence.

Jutta Kappel is Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Grünes Gewölbe, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Florian Knothe is Research Associate, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Ian Wardropper is Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Press reviews

Choice Reviews Online

"Both artists and European history scholars and students will find themselves fascinated."

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Exhibition

Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe

This is the most comprehensive exhibition to date on the tradition of hardstone carving (pietre dure) that developed in Italy in the sixteenth century and subsequently spread through Europe. Renaissance masters working in Rome cut colored marbles and laid them in geometrically patterned tabletops, such as the celebrated Farnese Table in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Milanese artisans preferred to cut designs in rock crystal, lapis lazuli, and other precious materials. In Florence, the passion of the Medici for importing precious stones led to Ferdinando I de' Medici's founding of the court workshops that still survive as the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Royal patronage encouraged Florentine craftsmen to migrate to Prague, and their practices gradually spread to such centers as Augsburg, Paris, Madrid, and Saint Petersburg. Some 150 tables, cabinets, caskets, jewelry, vases, and sculptures represent the range of this extraordinary art form cultivated by the courts of Europe through four centuries...

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