Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

An Italian micromosaic, Rome, circa 1800, depicting a recumbent brown and white spaniel, within a grassy landscape, with trees beyond, the oval panel edged with a red and white millefiore pellet surround, mounted as a brooch within a finely chased gold floral border, with glazed hinged locket compartment verso, and ring suspension above, dimensions 35 x 28mm.


The micromosaic is in the manner of Antonio Aguatti (late 18th century - 1846).
£1,200-£1,500

A similar example depicting the same composition was sold at Christie’s, 11 April 2002, Sale 6674, The Dr Anton C R Dreesmann Collection. Lot 842.

In the 18th century, large-scale Italian mosaics, inspired by the grand works of Ancient Rome, were falling out of favour. Reserved mainly for decorating the floors of Rome’s religious buildings– ie St Peter’s Basilica - the artisans responsible for creating them were increasingly short of work. Employed by the Studio del Mosaico della Fabbrica della Basilica di San Pietro, later known as the Vatican Mosaic Workshop, they supplemented their income by creating miniaturised versions of their mosaics to sell to private customers. 
Giacomo Raffaelli (1775-1836) is widely considered to be the founding father of the craft of micromosaics. These miniature works of art grew in popularity with the arrival of wealthy travellers on the Grand Tour, perfectly capturing Italy’s rich artistic tradition in miniature, and making the perfect souvenir from their travels in Italy.
The art form of micromosaics made dramatic advances from the classically inspired images of architecture prevalent in the late 18th century, towards more natural representations, due largely to the mosaicist Antonio Aguatti. Aguatti worked for the Vatican workshops whilst simultaneously running his own studio, and is credited with perfecting the techniques to create a variety of tesserae shapes, rather than just the uniform square and rectangular forms, and for the skills to blend different coloured tints. These multicoloured shaped tesserae lent greater realism to the the portrayal of plants, flowers, birds and animals. By the 1820s, Aguatti’s images were widely copied by other workshops, making exact attribution to an individual master impossible without signatures on each work.
The depiction of dogs was highly popular as part of the romantic genre of the 19th century, dogs being symbolic of faithful love. Due to their association with royalty, King Charles spaniels were frequently portrayed in paintings and micromosaics, this trend for pets as subjects largely led by the artist Edwin Landseer (1802-73).


Literature:

Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel: The Gilbert Collection, Micromosaics, London 2002: For the similar composition of a spaniel in micromosaic signed by Antonio Aguatti, see p.75, no. 23.