Grand Miniatures - Ace Architects: Home · pictures the adjacent ancient Roman structures . 14 15 Architectural Models Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection

Grand Miniatures19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace Architects

San Francisco Airport, International TerminalDecember, 2010 - June, 2011

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This page and cover: 19th Century Souvenir Buildingsas installed in the Collection of Ace Architects

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www. flysfo.com/web/page/sfo_museum/exhibitions/international_terminal_exhibitions/south_20.html

CatalogueLucia Howard & David Weingarten

Ace Architectswww.aceland.com

19th Century Souvenir Buildingsas installed in the Collection of Ace Architects

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Contents

I. Exhibition Plan facing page

II. The Grand Tour and Its Souvenirs pp. 8-19

III. 19th Century Souvenir Buildings - 20 Vitrines pp. 20-45

IV. About the Collection p. 46

V. Bibliography p. 47

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Rheims Cathedral, Rheims

Roman Forum Group,Italy

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Colonne du Congres,Brussels

July Column, Paris

Pantheon, Rome

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Tomb of Scipio, Rome

Luxor Obelisk, Paris

Colonna dell’Immacolata, Rome

Monument to Dante, Trento, Italy

Eiffel Tower,Paris

Bank of England, London

Rouen Cathedral, Rouen

Cleopatra’s Needle,London

Arch of Janus, Pantheon,Arch of Constantine, Rome

Austerlitz Column, Paris

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Contents

I. Exhibition Plan facing page

II. The Grand Tour and Its Souvenirs pp. 8-19

III. 19th Century Souvenir Buildings - 20 Vitrines pp. 20-45

IV. About the Collection p. 46

V. Bibliography p. 47

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Rheims Cathedral, Rheims

Roman Forum Group,Italy

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Colonne du Congres,Brussels

July Column, Paris

Pantheon, Rome

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris


Luxor Obelisk, Paris

Colonna dell’Immacolata, Rome

Monument to Dante, Trento, Italy

Eiffel Tower,Paris

Bank of England, London

Rouen Cathedral, Rouen

Cleopatra’s Needle,London

Arch of Janus, Pantheon,Arch of Constantine, Rome

Austerlitz Column, Paris

Baptistry, Pisa

Octogon zu Wilhelmshohe,Kassel, Germany

Arch of Constantine, Rome

Exhibition Plan

Concourse

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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 parallel enthusiasms in England. In this period, leading British architects and artists worked largely in the Classical idioms. The most important buildings were patterned

Hall at Hamilton Palace, Scotland, with souvenirs of the Grand Tour, including a patented bronze minia-ture of Paris’ Colonne d’Austerlitz (Photograph c. 1870)

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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 extended to the predictable vices of drink and gaming, but in other directions as well. The Italian custom of ‘ciciebeship’, for example, entertained older, married noblewomen’s liaisons with young English travelers.

Especially in the latter part of the 18th century in Italy, Grand Tourism occasioned 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 much-esteemed portraits of Grand Tourists, by artists such as Pompeo Batoni.

(above) “Canova in his Studio with Henry Tresham” (1788), by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. The famed sculptor, mallet and chisel in hand, leaning against his “Cupid and Psyche”, speaks with Tresham, a London historical painter pictured here on his Grand Tour .

(left) “Portrait of John Talbot” (1773) by Pompeo Batoni. This life-sized canvas of the future 1st Earl Talbot features antique Roman statues and architectural artifacts.

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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 scale previously unknown.

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.

“A Capriccio of Roman Ruins” (1737), Gian Paolo Panini. An imaginary grouping of ancient Roman monuments, including the Colosseum, Arch of Titus, Pyramid of Aaius Cesstius, etc.

“The Colosseum and Arch of Constantine” (c. 1650), Viviano Codazzi. This Baroque veduta realistically pictures the adjacent ancient Roman structures .

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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 Egyptian obelisk, brought from Alexandria; as well as the classicizing Nelson’s Column and Bank of England, their designs reliant on an-tique Rome. Only a late 19th century replica of Big Ben touches on the City’s much longer and more profound history with Gothic.

Likewise, among Parisian souvenirs featured here are the Arc de Triomphe (patterned on Rome’s Arch of Constantine); the Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde (another ancient Egyptian obelisk removed to Europe); and the Colonne d’Austerlitz in the Place Vendome, made in nearly literal imitation of Rome’s Trajan’s Column, though crowned by a different Emperor - Napoleon.

It is, then, little surprise that the Eternal City is the place most abundantly represented in Grand Miniatures, nor that all this City’s monumental miniatures are modeled on ancient structures. These are of all types – ruined and intact temples, triumphal arches and col-umns, and the great marvels of antique Rome – the Colosseum and Pantheon. Among these Roman souvenirs is a marble replica of the Flaminian Obelisk, in the Piazza del Popolo, yet another ancient Egyptian monument brought to the then new center of empire. There are, in fact, more ancient Egyptian obelisks in Rome than in Egypt.

The materials of these 19th century Roman architectural souvenirs – Italian marbles, alabaster, and bronze – go hand in hand with their subject matter. This exhibition’s

(top left) Models fashioned from cork were the earliest Italian architectural miniatures made for Grand Tourists; and were often commissioned, rather than made in multiples. This 1787 cork miniature of Rome’s Arch of Titus was made by Antonio Chichi.

(lower left) A second half of the 19th century marble miniature of the Temple of the Sibyl, in Tivoli, outside Rome.

(right) This Italian red marble pair of architectural miniatures protraying the Roman Forum’s Temple of Vespasian and Column of Phocas, are marked as made by Giuseppe Locatelli, in 1855.

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miniatures of the ruined Temples of Vespasian and Castor and Pollux, in the Forum, are fashioned from marble, like the buildings they represent. It is much more than possible that these souvenirs are made from antique Italian giallo antico, a marble commonly available in mid-19th century Rome.

Along the same lines, it is worth remembering that when Pope Julius II required the travertine for St. Peters, in the early 16th century, he sent his stonemasons to the Colosseum, which for centuries was employed as a quarry. Similarly, bronze ceiling tiles removed from Rome’s Pantheon on order of Pope Urban VIII were melted down and re-used, in part, for St. Peter’s Baldachino, designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini. Might some por-tion of the bronze, not employed by Bernini, have eventually found its way to this exhibi-tion’s bronze model of the Pantheon.

Late 19th century Italian architectural souvenirs, including this Exhibition’s Pisa miniatures – the Leaning Tower, Cathedral, and Baptistry – were often machine carved from alabaster, rather than more expensive marble. This less precious stone, sometimes combined with marble, was the material of choice for these souvenirs through the last decade of the 19th century into the first decade of the 20th century.

By 1900, Grand Tourists had collected travel souvenirs of Italy and other European destinations for more than 200 years. These included pictures, sculptures, antiquities, and the architectural miniatures which are the subject of this exhibition. In their new settings, these objects provoked fresh associations:

The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. From Edith Wharton’s “The Angel at the Grave”, 1901

The Great War, like conflicts before it, brought European tourism to a halt. By the time widespread travel resumed, tourists’ priorities and the sorts of souvenirs they sought were very much changed. Previous, single-minded passions for Classicism and ancient civiliza-tion faded, crowded by a range of other travel attractions. With this, the need of returning home with souvenir models of Europe’s antique monuments became less urgent.

(top left) This third quarter of the 19th century bronze, double inkwell replica of Rome’s Pantheon is in-cluded in “Grand Miniatures” (Vitrine #6); and is very similar to the model mentioned in Edith Wharton’s 1901 short story “The Angle at the Grave”.

(top right) A c. 1875 bronze inkwell in the form of Rome’s Temple of Hercules is supported on a stepped base made of two different Italian marbles.

This set of alabaster miniatures of Pisa’s monuments - (left to right) Leaning Tower, Basilica, and Baptistry - are listed in an 1892 household inventory for Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England.

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There’s a certain poignance, then, with Grand Miniatures, an exhibition of architec-tural tourists’ mementos from an antique period of travel; a period whose focus and leisurely pace was supplanted by more modern, diverse interests, abetted by the abil-ity to move around the planet quickly, easily, in airplanes.

Yet, Grand Miniatures also points to travel’s constants – our ongoing desires to see and experience first hand memorable, unfamiliar places and cultures; learn about the world beyond the everyday and take pleasure in this, just as the Grand Tourists did, beginning in the 17th century.

Notes from this Exhibition

Grand Miniatures is arranged in twenty vitrines towards the south end of San Francisco Airport’s International Terminal. Each case focuses on a single city along the route of the Grand Tour, and includes one or more of each place’s architectural souvenirs.

This catalogue sharpens the focus still further, considering either individual objects or, less frequently, small groups of related miniatures. In this, our purpose is to examine in greater depth the circumstances and histories of the souvenirs themselves, rather than the buildings and monuments they model.

For example, this catalogue attempts to provide the dates of manufacture for each object, and , where possible, the name of the manufacturer. This exhibition’s miniatures were made for a variety of purposes, from a variety of materials, employing a variety of methods; and a further goal of the following is to describe something of these ranges.

Interestingly enough, several of the miniatures in this exhibition pre-date the places they represent, providing new meanings for the word “souvenir”. Several other of these replicas have outlived the monuments they model.

A final purpose of this catalogue, in common with the exhibition, is to underscore both the historical changes in the ways we recall memorable places, as well as the absolute continuity of our passions for this species of memory.

We’re grateful to the SFO Museum, lead by Director Blake Summer, for the compelling, handsome curation, design, and installation of “Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace Architects”. This is the third exhibition with which we’ve collaborated with SFO Museum, over the last 17 years. We much appreciate their enthusiasm and commitment to exhibitions at once popular, and beyond the reach of more conventional institutions.

The British were not the only northern Europeans in the 17th through the 19th centuries focussed on antique Classicism and the ancient world. After the French Revolution, Napoleon financed expeditions to Egypt, whose purposes were both to document the great monuments, and return with artifacts. For this, the new Emperor engaged the assistance of Dominique Vivant, who in the late 18th century worked for the government, studying and collecting ancient art in Italy, and producing two important architectural volumes concerning ancient Egypt.

In 1804 Napoleon appointed him Director-General of Museums, in which capacity he personally brought to France artwork from defeated nations, especially Italy.

Benjamin Zix’s “Portrait Allegorique de Vivant Denom” shows him surrounded by Classicizing sculpture, models of ancient monuments, and antique texts.

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Rheims Cathedral, Francec. 1820; F. Villemsens, Paris: gilded bronze; 24” highIn the first part of the 19th century, several French clockmakers undertook elaborately detailed models of a group of French gothic cathedrals, including Rheims, Notre Dame de Paris, and Rouen. F. Villemsens, a Parisian maker, fabricated this fire-gilded bronze minia-ture of Rheims Cathedral c. 1820. This clock was furnished with an inlaid rosewood base,

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which supported a removeable glass dome. At the base’s interior is a coiled red gong, struck at the hour and half hour.

(above) Maker’s plaque is located below clockface.

(this page) Highly detailed, gilded bronze clock case is typical of French cathedral clocks of this period.


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Roman Forum Group, Italyc. 1850; Italy; marble; 17-1/2“ highThese Italian giallo antico marble models of the ruins of the Temples of Castor and Pollux, and Vespasian, and the Column of Phocus, all in the Roman Forum, date to the middle of the 19th century. Often encountered singly, this is an unusual matched set of miniatures - their capitols, columns, bases, and other details all the work of the same expert carver.

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Roman Forum Group, Italy

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Despite the Forum’s profusion of ruins, these three monuments were souvenir makers’ mod-els of choice.

(this page) High detail relief carving of entab-lature and column capitals.


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Arc de Triomphe, Paris1870’s: LeBlanc Freres, Paris; patinated bronze; 15“ highThis large, highly detailed, patinated bronze model of the Arc de Triomphe is mounted to a French slate base. Maker LeBlanc Freres produced a profusion of good quality Parisian souvenir architectural minatures, in a variety of sizes, in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Like this model, the majority of these miniatures included a velver lined box built into the top.

4Colonne de Congres, Belgium1860; Belgium; patinated bronze; 36“ highA tour de force of mid-19th century bronze casting, this extravagantly detailed model of the Colonne de Congres includes extracts from the Belgian constitution, names of the country’s martyrs, etc., readable only under magnification. This miniature’s several parts are fitted to-gether with a precision and closeness of tolerance unseen in other architectural replicas.

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(above) LeBlanc Freres name isstamped into the underside of the box top.


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July Column, Paris1870’s; LeBlanc Freres, Paris; patinated bronze; 25-1/2” highIn the second half of the 19th century, before completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, Parisian souvenir monuments were generally limited to the Arc de Triomphe, Colonne d’Austerlitz, Obelisqe du Luxor, and this, the Colonne de Juillet. All, it appears, were cast, at one time or another, by the LeBlanc Freres foundry.

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Pantheon, Rome c. 1870: Italy; double inkwell; bronze /marble; 6“ highIn the 17th century, Roman Baroque architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini added a pair of bell towers to the facade of the ancient Pantheon. They were not popular and, almost imme-diately, were called the “ass’s ears”. In 1883 they were removed. This bronze model of the Pantheon pictures the ancient temple absent Bernini’s scorned ‘ears’.

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(left) Detail of July Column capital, and Le Genie de la Liberte


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7Notre Dame, Parisc. 1820; F. DuMouchel a Paris; gilded bronze; 18“ highAnother in the impressive group of early 19th century minaiutre s of French gothic ca-thedrals, this model was made by F. DuMouchel of Paris. Perhaps the best known maker of these clocks is Barozet Freres. Ottomeyer and Proschel’s volume Vergoldete Bronzen

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pictures the firm’s Rheims Cathedral, and notes their advertisement for the range of the architectural clocks in an 1837 issue of the Commerce Almanac.

(far left) Detail of windows and openings adjacent to the clockface.

(left)Maker’s stamp at back of clock.

(below) Detail of gallery at base of towers.


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Tomb of Scipio, Romec. 1850 ; Italy; marble; 8” highLocated along the Appian Way, the Tomb of Scipio contained the remains of one of Imperial Rome’s greatest military leaders. In the 19th century, this was a popular subject for souvenir architectural miniatures. This large example, fashioned from red marble, is purposed, almost of course, as a box with a removable lid.

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Luxor Obelisk, Paris1870’s: LeBlanc Freres, Paris: Brass/marble; 16-1/2“highThis ancient Egyptian obelisk, originally placed at the Temple in Luxor, arrived in Paris in 1883 after an unusually harrowing journey, and was re-erected on a new base in the Place de la Concorde. This replica, which may have been cast by LeBlanc Freres, is highlty realized, and includes the diagram showing how the monument was re-erected.

(left) Detail of carving at lid and top of box. Inscription is red pigment pressed into carved letters.

(right) The obelisk’s base, designed by the French, portrays the elevation of the monument in Paris.


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Colonna dell’Immacolata, Romec. 1853; Italy; marble/ alabaster/ silver/ terracotta/ bronze; 80“ highExtraordinaily tall and lavishly turned out, this model of the Colonna dell’Imacolata near the Piazza de Spagna at the foot of the Spanish Steps, is fashioned from a remarkable variety of materials. The piece includes seven different marbles, alabaster, cast silver panels, terra cotta figures, and bronze miniatures of the Papal seal. Differences in proportiona and detail,

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1 20 Colonna dell’Immacolata, Romebetween the model and the monument it represents, suggest this impressive miniature was fabricated in advance of the Colonna’s construction in 1857. Pope Pius IX anounced the project, celebrating the Virgin’s own virgin birth, in 1854, and this model likely served to rally enthusiasm for the project.

(this page) The monument’s base with various marbles, alabaster, cast bronze Papal crest, and terra cotta statue.

(opposite above) Terra cottra figure of the Virgin.

(opposite below) Cast silver bas relief, one of four set into the base.


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Arch of Constantine, Romec. 1850: Italy; bronze/travertine: 12“ highThis large, unusual, highly detailed bronze miniature is set atop a block of possibly antique travertine. Later 19th century replicas of this monument were carved in both marble and alabaster.

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Octogon zu Wilhelmshohe, Kassel, Germanyca. 1860; Germany; triple inkwell; brass; 12“ highThe remarkable, early 18th century Calissically-inspired landscape and waterworks at Kassel is the subject of this perspectivally-enhanced, brass, triple inkwell and sander. Closer architectural elements are rendered large, while those in the distance, including a statue of Hercules atop an attenuated pyramid, are smaller.

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(above) Unidentified maker’s mark or inventory number.

(above) Inkwell and samder covers are hinged or pivot to the side.


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Baptistry, Pisac. 1890; Italy; alabaster/marble; 9“ highTowards the end of the 19th century, Italian architectural souvenirs were inreasingly made in alabaster, a less costly stone than marble; and were carved with aid from machines, rather than wholly by hand. This large model, which includes marble at its base, demonstrates the very delicate detail possible in this material.

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Austerlitz Column, Paris1800s (see below): Paris; bronze and silver; all 3 are 7-1/2“ highBuilt in 1810, this monument, patterned on Trajan’s Column in Rome, has undergone a succession of changes over the course of its 200 year history. Originally the column was surmounted by a figure of Napoleon clothed as a Roman emperor. In 1833, this statue was exchanged for the familiar ‘Little Corporal’ which, in 1863, was itself replaced by a different, Roman-inspired statue very similar to the original statue of 1810.

The souvenirs pictured here, produced over the length of the 19th century, record three successive changes to the figure of Napoleon atop the column:

(l to r) c. 1810, c. 1850, c. 1880)


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Arch of Janus, Arch of Constantine, Pantheon, Romec. 1880: Italy; marlbe/alabaster; two arches are 5“ high, Pantheon 6”highThese three models were all made at about the same time; each a carved, yellow marble miniature set atop a white stone base, into the side of which is cut the monument’s name.

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Other Roman subjects rendered this way at about this time include the colosseum, Arches of Constan-tine and Titus, and Temples of Sibyl and Vesta.


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Cleopatra’s Needle, Londonc. 1880; England; serpentine marble; 33-1/2“ highIn 1878, after a long sea journey from Alexandria, the ancient Egyptian obelisk from Helopolis arrived in London. A remarkable mania for things Egyptian, including miniatures of ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’, ensued. This large model is made of English Serpentine, its heiro-glyphics, which accurately reflect the obelisk’s, etched into the stone’s lustrous surfaces.

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Rouen Cathedral, Francec. 1820: France; gilded bronze; 18“ highLike this exhibition’s early 19th century, gilded bronze clock models of Rheims and Notre Dame, this miniature of a facade of Rouen Cathedral is elaborately and accurately detailed.

(left) Accurate representation of the monument’s hieroglyphics is etched into the polished surface of this English serpentine min-iature.

(above) Unidentified maker’s stamp at reversed side of case.


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Bank of England, London1897; Frederick Edwards, London: sterling silver/marble; 4” highcThe June 28, 1897, issue of the Liverpool Mercury included this brief item – “New York, Saturday – The President of the American Exchange Bank has received from a college friend a model in silver of the Bank of England. The model is a foot square, and every external feature is carefully reproduced. A well-known London firm was tied up months constructing it and it is estimated to be worth $1000.”

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What a spectacular gift for this man! Surprisingly often, architectural miniatures prove longer-lived than the buildings they model. This sterling replica pictures the Bank as architect, John Soane, had designed the building – a low, Classicizing, windowless (to protect against civil insurrections) block. Beginning in 1925, a disfiguring tower was added, ruining Soane’s magical, top lit banking halls, though preserving the street facades. This was, wrote the great architectural historian Nicho-las Pevsner, “the greatest architectural crime in the City of London, of the twentieth century.”

(below) Hallmarks show, from left, the maker -Frederick Edwards; standard - .925 Sterling; city - London; and date - 1897.


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Eiffel Tower, Paris1880’s: France: painted spelter; 26“ highThis tall, painted spelter miniature predates the Eiffel Tower; and both relies on and takes liberties with that landmark’s design, which was widely published prior to its construction. The colossal, winged figure, blowing its long trumpet, is based on very much smaller, though similar statue appearing in Eiffel’s original design, though left unbuilt.

Eiffel Tower, Paris

20 20 19Monument to Dante, Trento

c. 1892: Cesare Zocchi di Francesco; Italy; bronze/marble; 41“ highThis impressive, carefully cast, bronze model was made before the monument was built, be-ginning in 1893. Accompanying this miniature is a tall, green marble stand, with a revolving top, allowing the model to be turned (and admired) from all sides. Cesare Zocchi, the monu-ment’s sculptor,etched his signature into the miniature’s base.

1 20 20 Eiffel Tower, ParisEiffel Tower, Paris

(left) Figure of trumpeting Eiffel’s design.

46 47

About the Collection

Over the last thirty-five years, Ace Architects has assembled the world’s leading and most extensive collection of souvenir architectural miniatures. Among these are objects representing memorable buildings and monuments, of all types, from around the world.

Several of the earliest of these, produced in the early 19th century, are included with this exhibition – Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collec-tion of Ace Architects – while the most recent were made within the last several years. Over this two hundred year span, architectural miniatures have been fashioned from an extraordinary variety of materials – cork; the range of marbles; brass and bronze; zinc, iron, silver, copper, and gold; plastic, paper, wood, clay, and rubber; and, even less enduringly, ice – into an extraordinary variety of objects – inkwells, lamps, and boxes; paperweights, pencils, and pencil weights; salt and pepper shakers, banks, bookends and bottles; cigarette lighters, cigarette boxes, and ashtrays; needle cases, radios, erasers; candles, and bars of soap.

What all have in common, though, is their purpose – reminding travelers of remark-able visits to memorable places.

Objects from Ace Architects’ collection have formed exhibitions at museums across the United States, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Octagon Museum, St. Louis University, and Museum of the City of New York. Grand Miniatures is Ace’s third exhibition with SFO Museums.

The collection has been featured in the range of media – The New York and Los Ange-les Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Architectural Digest, House Beauti-ful, CNN.com – as well as on TV and National Public Radio.

Souvenir Buildings/Miniature Monuments, a volume describing the phenomenon of architectural miniatures, was authored by Ace Architects principal David Weingarten and Margaret Majua, and published by Harry Abrams.

Bibliography

Arisi, Ferdinando. Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ‘700. Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1986.

Black, Jeremy. Italy and the Grand Tour. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003.

Hibbert, Christopher. The Grand Tour. London: Methuen London Ltd., 1987.

Lassels, Richard. An Italian Voyage, or A Compleat Journey through Italy. Paris: John Starkey, 1670. 2 vols.

Marshall, David Ryley. Viviano and Niccolo Codazzi and the Baroque Architectural Fantasy. Rome: Jandi Sapi Editori, 1993.

Ottomeyer, Hans, and Proschel, Peter. Vergoldete Bronzen. Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1986. 2 vols.

Trease, Geoffrey. The Grand Tour. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection of Ace ArchitectsBack cover: Eiffel Tower vitrine

50 Grand Tour Miniatures50 Grand Tour Miniatures

Ace Architects330 2nd Street #1, Oakland, Ca, 94607

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Documents

Grand Miniatures - Ace Architects: Home · pictures the adjacent ancient Roman structures . 14 15 Architectural Models Grand Miniatures: 19th Century Souvenir Buildings from the Collection