1843 Italy, fresco, Mantua, Zahn, large folio, early colour lithograph, classical art (x)

Fresco from the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua

Fine large folio colour lithograph by Wilhelm Johann Karl Zahn (1800-1871) for his monumental work "Ornamente aller klassischen Kunstepochen" (Ornaments of all classical periods in art) published in Berlin by G. Reimer, 1843.

43 x 29 cm

Traveling in Italy in the 1820s, Zahn recorded ornamental patterns at Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as the interiors of the 16th-century Palazzo Del Te in Mantua designed by Giuliano Romano. He published "Ornamente", with its copious examples of classical, medieval, and renaissance ornament, to educate designers in the neoclassical and renaissance styles. 

Zahn became professor in 1829 at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. The plates all depict wall murals and fresco borders discovered at Herculaneum and Pompeii where he was superintendent of excavations. 

The plates from "Ornamente" were some of the first colour lithographs published.