AN ITALIAN MICROMOSAIC PICTURE OF A BOAR HUNT

In the first half of the 19th century especially, mosaicists sought to demonstrate their skill by choosing obviously painterly subjects to trick the eye of the viewer into thinking on first sight that they are looking at an oil on canvas by an Old Master. The most talented choose scenes full of life and movement and so the boar hunt was a popular scene, drawn from the oeuvre of Frans Snyders (1579-1657), see The Boar Hunt oil on canvas by Snyders in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Accession Number 17.322). Compare three smaller mosaics of the same subject J. Hanisee Gabriel, Micromosaics Private Collections, 2016, No. 11 [p. 44] No. 107 [p. 146] and No. 108 [p. 147].

This is a large plaque, and the masterful use of multi-shaped tesserae is the work of an expert mosaicist. The signature ‘C. Rinaldi F. in . Roma’ is probably that of Costanitino Rinaldi, and the skill of the composition shows the hand of his father, the virtuoso mosaicist Gioacchino Rinaldi. Costanitino Rinaldi is recorded to have worked at 125 Via del Babuino, Rome, in the mid-19th century.