II Trajan’s Column in Rosso Antico Marble

II. Trajan’s Column in Rosso Antico Marble

30-1/2”h., c 1830, rosso antico marble on stepped rosso and nero antico base, surmounted by a gilded bonze figure of the Emperor See Pricing.

This and the following section focus on Roman souvenir architectural models, from the first third of the 19th century, carved in rosso antico marble – a blood red stone imported from Greece to the Eternal City roughly in the time of Augustus; or year zero. After several sackings, across several centuries, the ground in Rome lay thick with the broken brightly-colored shards of Augustus’ ‘city of marble’. By the 17th century enterprising stonecutters – scarpellini – were refashioning these ruined remains into the range of decorative arts. By the later 18th and early 19th century, and with the onrush of tourism, this included the architectural mementos pictured in these pages.

After 1840, or so, the supply of ruined rosso antico marble largely exhausted, scarpellini turned to other ancient, imported marbles, first nero antico, then giallo antico. By the later 19th century, even these stoned turned scarce, and stonecutters turned to contemporaneously quarried Italian alabaster.

(l) detail, base (below) detail, bas-relief (r) offered model