Angelo Orsoni - Shadeboard of mosaic smalti and golds

Angelo Orsoni - Shadeboard of mosaic smalti and golds -
1889 - 100 cm × 100 cm, hand cut smalti and golds. Venice, Lucio Orsoni’s private collection, Italian Pavilion, Government Officies. This photograph shows the celebrated panel that the company’s
founder, Angelo Orsoni, displayed at 1889 Universal Exhibition
in Paris, and which still holds pride of place in the office
of his great-grandson Ruggero and Lucio. One is immediately
struck by the modern qualities of the piece, simple in its conception
and brilliant in its plays of light and shade. It is a timeless
object, a proud and extraordinarily balanced monument to
the power of colour.
It is pleasing to think that the great Gaudì, after having seen
this panel, decided to abandon painted ceramics once and for
all in favour of Orsoni’s enamels, using them for his immortal
decorations on the spires of the Sagrada Familia Church.
The Orsoni name is linked to the realization of important
works such as the Trocadéro and the Basilica of the Sacre Coeur
in Paris, Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Sagrada Familia
in Barcelona, and many other mosaic masterpieces in Arab and
Oriental culture.
In the historic and prestigious Venetian furnace, Angelo Orsoni
held various types of courses that taught the techniques, the
secrets, and the history of mosaic and it’s possibile to admire a
permanent exhibition of contemporary artists of the mosaic.