Scagliola - Technique resembling marble inlays

Scagliola (from the Italian scaglia, meaning “chips”), is a technique for producing stucco columns, sculptures, and other architectural elements that resemble inlays in marble and semi-precious stones. The Scagliola technique came into fashion in 17th-century Tuscany as an effective substitute for costly marble inlays, the pietra dura works created for the Medici family in Florence.

Scagliola cameos — A collection of Grand Tour miniature scagliola and pietra dura hardstone cameos Four set in a single oval frame, including a view of St Peter’s, Rome, a floral spray and Pliny’s doves and a Venetian lion with an aventurine surround, together with three unmounted examples of St Peter’s Square and two of flowers, Sold for £1,375 at Bonhams

Scagliola Table — A REGENCY GONCALO ALVES AND SCAGLIOLA CENTER TABLE CIRCA 1820 The circular top with gadrooned edge surrounding a scaliola top with St. Peter’s Square surrounded by landscape panels depicting the sights of Ancient Rome including the temples of Castor and Pollux, the Colosseum, the Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo raised on foliate scrolled paw monopodia joined by a molded in-curved stretcher 31½ in. (80 cm.) high, 39½ in. (100.5 cm.) diameter. Sold for USD 80,500 at Christies

Italian Slate and Scagliola Panel, 19th century, the rectangular top with a band of cavorting putti with corner avian accents, the center with three panels, all depicting scenes of pastoral life, raised on two truncated vasiform chenet urns in the Antique taste and continuing to stepped square bases, h. 20-3/4″, w. 45-1/2″, d. 21-1/2″. Sold For: $8,250 at New Orleans Auction Galleries

Scagliola Tables — A pair of Italian Neoclassical polychrome-painted and parcel-gilt side tables last quarter 18th century with painted scagliola inlaid slate tops depicting pastoral scenes. height 33 1/2 in.; width 47 1/2 in.; depth 21 1/2 in. 85 cm; 120.5 cm; 54.5 cm. Sold for 5,250 USD at Sothebys

Scene from Ossian, scagliola. In the middle of a pseudo classical hall is a girl playing a harp, to the right a seated shieftain listens attended by a young knight in armour who stands beside him; to the left under an arch a woman and an old man stand watching. Inscribed on the back in ink: Ossian: On the harp arose the white hands of Oinamoral. She waked her own sad tale from every trembling string. I stood in silence for bright in her looks was the Daughter of many Isles.; Inlaid by John Augustus Richter, Scagliolist, London, 1809, Aet, 79. Inscribed in ink. On its acquisition in 1932, this panel of inlaid coloured plaster was considered to be an interesting example for technical purposes, no other example being in the Museum’s collections at the time. Scagliola, a technique originating in Italy, is plaster coloured in imitation of marble or stone. This relief depicts the legend of Ossian, supposedly a 3rd-century Irish warrior and bard whose poems were collected and translated by James Macpherson (1736-1796) and published in the 1760s. Macpherson, in reality, had collected obscure songs and verses of the recent past in the Irish language, fraudulently rewritten them and then published them as by the fictive Ossian. John Augustus Richter (1730-after 1809) was the father of the painter Henry J. Richter (1772-1857), who exhibited two watercolours based on the poems of Ossian at the Royal Academy in London in 1792. Richter came to England from Desden before the year 1770 and set himself up as a senior partner in Richter and Bartoli, a firm of Scagliolists (manufaturers of scagliola) located in Newport Street, Long Acre, London. It may have been Henry (the father) who designed this panel, which was later produced in scagliola by his son. In 1795 father and son published an illustrated edition of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, the plates of which were mostly produced by Henry. © Victoria and Albert Museum

Scagliola panel, Heracles and the Stymphalian birds — A scagliola panel, Heracles and the Stymphalian birds, impressed Lipoth-F. above copper plaque, ‘Heracles Mithosa’ within bronze frame, approx 57cm x 49cm, (66cm x 58cm including frame) Note: The Stymphalian Birds are man-eating birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers that can be launched at their victims, and poisonous dung. They were pets of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. They migrated to a marsh in Arcadia to escape a pack of wolves and there they bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops, fruit trees, and townspeople. The Stymphalian birds were defeated by the hero Heracles (Hercules) in his Sixth Labour for Eurystheus. Heracles could not go into the marsh to reach the nests of the birds, as the ground would not support his weight. Athena, noticing the hero’s plight, gave Heracles a rattle called a krotala, which Hephaestus had made especially for the occasion. Heracles shook the krotala rattle and frightened the birds into the air. Heracles then shot many of them with arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain Hydra . The rest flew far away, never to plague Arcadia again. Heracles brought some of the slain birds to Eurystheus as proof of his success. The surviving birds made a new home on an island in the Euxine sea where the later encountered them. Sold For: £700 at Roseberys London

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