Grand Miniatures 19Th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace Architects
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Grand Miniatures 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace Architects San Francisco Airport, International Terminal December, 2010 - June, 2011 2 3 This page and cover: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings as installed in the Collection of Ace Architects 4 5 Grand Miniatures 19th Century SouvenirGrand Buildings from the Collection Miniatures of Ace Architects San Francisco19th Century Airport, SouvenirInternational Buildings Terminal from the Collection of Ace Architects December, 2010 - June, 2011 www. flysfo.com/web/page/sfo_museum/exhibitions/international_terminal_exhibitions/south_20.html San Francisco Airport, International Terminal December, 2010 - June, 2011 Catalogue Lucia Howard & David Weingarten Ace Architects www.aceland.com 19th Century Souvenir Buildings as installed in the Collection of Ace Architects 6 7 Concourse Contents Monument to Dante, Rheims Cathedral, Trento, Italy 20 1 Rheims I. Exhibition Plan facing page Eiffel Tower, Roman Forum Group, II. The Grand Tour and Its Souvenirs pp. 8-19 Paris 19 2 Italy Bank of England, Arc de Triomphe, III. 19th Century Souvenir Buildings - London 18 3 Paris 20 Vitrines pp. 20-45 Rouen Cathedral, Colonne du Congres, Rouen 17 4 Brussels IV. About the Collection p. 46 Cleopatra’s Needle, July Column, V. Bibliography p. 47 London 16 5 Paris Arch of Janus, Pantheon, Pantheon, Arch of Constantine, Rome 15 6 Rome Austerlitz Column, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris 14 7 Paris Baptistry, Tomb of Scipio, Pisa 13 8 Rome Octogon zu Wilhelmshohe, Luxor Obelisk, Kassel, Germany 12 9 Paris Arch of Constantine, Colonna dell’Immacolata, Rome 11 10 Rome Exhibition Plan 8 9 The Grand Tour and Its Souvenirs Most visitors to this exhibition, in the International Terminal of San Francisco Air- port, are on their way somewhere else – often to places far away and provocatively unfamiliar; places perhaps exotic, ancient, and out-of-the-way; for purposes diverting, instructive, commercial. These travelers continue a tradition begun more than 400 years ago. Beginning in the late 16th century, a very few, often English tourists began to write about their almost unimaginably adventurous visits to the Continent. With these accounts developed new understandings of travel, especially the idea that it might be both educational and entertaining. Before then, only war and religion (often the two together, e.g. The Crusades), as well as commerce (e.g. Marco Polo) propelled people to distant places. Voyage of Italy, or a Compleat Journey through Italy, the first English guidebook to that country, appeared in 1670, written by Richard Lassels, a Catholic priest and “bear- leader” – a tour guide and chaperone of sorts to those young aristocratic Englishmen, and occasionally women, who were the period’s typical tourists. Very often, this journey, which might occupy a year or more, replaced students’ final terms at college; and in addition to other duties, bearleaders acted as teachers, seeing to their charges’ formal education. By the early part of the 18th century, the English traveler’s route was well established – across the Channel to France; several weeks in Paris, slow progress south across the Alps to Italy and eventually, after stops in Florence and, perhaps, Venice, on to Rome, the ultimate destination. This trip, which became known as the Grand Tour, could be difficult and perilous. Grand Tourists perished en route and in Italy from disease; and journeys were often interrupted by quarantines for plague; wars and civil insurrections; highwaymen, ‘banditti’, and, for those few choosing passage by ship, pirates. And yet, still the travelers came. The attractions, of course, were multiple and substantial. Historic accounts of the Grand Tour focus on its cultural and, especially, artistic aspects – the opportunity to visit the great, ancient monuments and sculptures of Classical Rome; to see the famous canvases and palaces of the Renaissance, for example. This passion for antique Classicism both mirrored and fed Hall at Hamilton Palace, Scotland, with souvenirs of the Grand Tour, including a patented bronze minia- parallel enthusiasms in England. In this period, leading British architects and artists ture of Paris’ Colonne d’Austerlitz (Photograph c. 1870) worked largely in the Classical idioms. The most important buildings were patterned 10 11 on those of Andrea Palladio, the Classicing Italian Renaissance architect whose work interpreted the majestic structures of ancient Rome. Why were the British held in such thrall by Rome? The cultural parallels were unmistakable. Ancient Rome had been the civilized center of empire for a thousand years. In the mid- 18th century, a pinnacle of the British Empire, the new center was London. And yet, as the then ruined city dramatically highlighted, Rome, its civili- zation and empire, had foundered. Modern Romans lived among the ruins. In ways profound, and hardly subtle, Rome offered the British a riveting, cautionary tale; a glimpse, perhaps, of their own future. Cultural pre-occupations with Classicism occasioned neglect of other historic periods, including the achievements of the Gothic. The Grand Tour souvenirs exhibited here reflect travelers’ skewed interests, with Classical buildings and monuments abundantly represented, while their Gothic counterparts are almost, though not entirely, overlooked. Recent Grand Tour studies have included the pleasures of this travel beyond the academic. Freed of stifling social conventions at home, young English aristocrats took to the variety of novel cultural freedoms enjoyed in Italy. If not quite Spring Break in Daytona Beach, it was very unlike London. Liberties (above) extended to the predictable vices of drink and gaming, but in other directions as “Canova in his Studio with Henry Tresham” well. The Italian custom of ‘ciciebeship’, for example, entertained older, married (1788), by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. The famed sculptor, mallet and chisel in hand, noblewomen’s liaisons with young English travelers. leaning against his “Cupid and Psyche”, speaks with Tresham, a London historical painter Especially in the latter part of the 18th century in Italy, Grand Tourism occasioned pictured here on his Grand Tour . a large trade in antiquities and art. In addition to ancient statues, architectural artifacts, and Italian Old Master pictures, there was now substantial commerce in new sculpture, including work by Antonio Canova and new paintings, especially (left) “Portrait of John Talbot” (1773) by Pompeo much-esteemed portraits of Grand Tourists, by artists such as Pompeo Batoni. Batoni. This life-sized canvas of the future 1st Earl Talbot features antique Roman statues and architectural artifacts. 12 13 Additionally, a new genre of painting, the capriccio, picturing novel, imagined arrangements of ancient Classical architectural ruins, was widely produced, and enthusiastically purchased for export to England. These pictures origins lie in 17th century Baroque Italian vedute – view paintings – of Classical ruins, made as decoration for palazzi and apartments. The central subject of these was, of course, Rome. The most famous capriccio painter, Gian Paolo Panini, maintained a studio of artists all capable of working in his distinctive style. The French Revolution, in 1792, soon led to that country’s occupation of substantial areas of the Kingdom of Italy, and very sharply curtailed Grand Tourism, though the especially adventurous still set out for Rome. Yet, by the first part of the 19th century, encouraged by English travel companies such as Thomas Cook, which arranged all aspects of visitors’ itineraries; and, especially, by the later completion of railroad routes to Italy, tourism revived, at a “A Capriccio of Roman Ruins” (1737), Gian Paolo Panini. An imaginary grouping of ancient Roman scale previously unknown. monuments, including the Colosseum, Arch of Titus, Pyramid of Aaius Cesstius, etc. In the mid-19th century, the Grand Tour, previously an aristocratic privilege, became somthing of a mass phenomenon, the precursor to today’s democratized, international travel industry, in which San Francisco Airport plays an integral role. “The Colosseum and Arch of Constantine” (c. 1650), Viviano Codazzi. This Baroque veduta realistically pictures the adjacent ancient Roman structures . 14 15 Architectural Models Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace Architects surveys the range of miniature architectural travel souvenirs available to Grand Tourists along their usual route – from London, through France to Paris, then south to the Alps, into northern Italy and, eventually, to Rome. These miniatures also reflect the changing nature of European travel in the 19th century. For example, the exhibit’s large, very finely made, gilt bronze timepiece replicas of the facades of cathedrals in Paris, Rheims, and Rouen, were all made ca. 1820, for very well- heeled clientele, including aristocratic Grand Tourists. By century’s end, and at the other end of the spectrum, the mass-produced cast zinc and iron replicas of the Eiffel Tower were made to be much less costly, available to travelers of relatively modest means. If the quality of architectural souvenirs changed much over the course of the 19th century, their subject matter – Classicism and the antique – varied hardly at all. Even in prosperous, up-to-date cities, these miniatures focus on ancient monuments. Grand Miniatures includes two vitrines featuring London souvenirs. These include the so- called Cleopatra’s Needle, a 15th century BC