Amor and Psyche - diorama
karta katalogowa kolekcji
Rzemiosło artystyczne
circle of Angelica Kauffmann (copperplate)
18th-19th century
Copperplate coloured with watercolours; semi-precious stones
46 x 57 x 6 cm
Wil.1927
It would be difficult to describe this item without any reservations as a work of art. The composition enclosed in a glassed-in box is a montage of fragments of a copperplate tinted with watercolour and glued onto a piece of cardboard with semi-precious stones imitating plants. The monument is distinguished for its naive charm and appears to be the work of an amateur. It is a diorama of sorts – an illusionistic plaything intent on achieving the illusion of three-dimensional space. The term "diorama" comes from the Greek: dia – thorough, and horama – view.
This type of semi-visual arts imagery, usually landscapes or vedutte and more rarely mythological or historical scenes, was extremely fashionable in the nineteenth century due to Louis Jacques Daguerre, the pioneer of photography. Paintings or enlarged photographs were placed against a background, and in the forefront, at a certain distance, the artists added a model made out of natural components; in the case of larger compositions, they added realistic objects and even stuffed animals. Smaller-size nineteenth-century dioramas, mainly from Bohemia and Silesia, have survived to our times.
Krystyna Gutowska-Dudek
Polecane
Iconography of the Wilanów museum interiors in the 19th century
Studia Wilanowskie, 1989 r. T. XI In the second half of the 18th and throughout the 19th century we can observe …
History of the collection
Already Jan III collected works of art and exquisite objects of everyday use. However, only a fraction of his collection …
Minerva amidst Muses
Apparently, this is only one of many excellent paintings executed by the Low Countries master. The board, in the shape …
