stone mosaic (commesso) picture, Florence, c.1940, signed M. Montelatici

Rectangular mosaic (commesso di pietre dure) picture of soft stones and marbles, depicting a small boy on the right and a puppy on the right.

The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Provenance: Arte del Mosaico, Florence, 1962.

The creation of pictures in hardstone mosaics, so called commessi di pietre dure or simply, pietre dure (Italian for ‘hard stones’), is an art initiated in Florence in the sixteenth century

Traditional patrons for commessi di pietre dure (stone mosaic) art were a niche often courtly clientele, wealthy enough to afford precious pictures in stone. The first half of the twentieth century was a particularly challenging period for Florentine ‘pietre dure’ workshops: traditions of production and style held dear for centuries were challenged in a rapidly changing world. Lapidary artists responded with changes in technique, preferring less expensive Tuscan stones, as well as with a change of subject-matter and styles away from traditional motifs. The most exciting works from this period share a realism and preference for rural subjects, celebrating the simple pleasures and harsh reality of a Tuscan farmers’ life at the time, amid the beauty of the natural landscape. It is hard to imagine a starker contrast to the romantic couples set against varying historic backdrops, which were the dominant subject of Florentine pietre dure makers only a generation earlier. The change in imagery is in part supported by a different palette of stones used for their creation: Tuscan limestone increasingly replaced marbles. The pictures therefore have softer colours and are more akin to watercolours than to oil paintings when seen from a distance.

Mario Montelatici came from a family of stone mosaic makers. His father, Giovanni Montelatici (1864 -1930), aspired to reenergize the commessi di pietre dure technique and excelled in the production of hardstone designs from contemporary genre painting such as this.

To find out more about the making of pietre dure, watch the video 'Making a Pietre Dure panel' (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/videos/m/video-making-a-pietre-dure-panel)

Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde formed one of the world's great decorative art collections, including silver, mosaics, enamelled portrait miniatures and gold boxes. He donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996.
Arthur acquired this picture in 1962 for Rosalinde. It was the very first picture he bought and which triggered their passion for the art of stone mosaics.

A letter that accompanied the purchase states that it took around 14 months and about ‘two thousand small pieces of natural colored different stones’ for Mario Montelatici to create this panel.

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