One of the major contributors to the Gallery 19 look is our relationship with Italy. More than just a merchant of beautiful images and objects, Italy teaches and Italy inspires. In our experience, you cannot beat either the design or quality of something Made in Italy.
Gallery 19 has suppliers in Rome, Florence and Venice who we meet with on a regular basis and we are always on the look out for something exceptional to introduce into the Gallery 19 collection. Two years ago it was the calf-leather journals made in Florence and last year it was the hand-coloured reproduction engravings on antique paper which we found in Bologna and traced back to the workshop of two brothers in Oltrarno, the other side of Florence. This year – during a week in the Val d'Orcia researching a book the gallery is producing on a small chapel that sits on a hill between San Quirico d'Orcia and Pienza - we found something very special.
The discovery was a clump of cypress trees made out of wrought iron and welded onto a base made of mattaione, the local clay formed out of sediments of the Pliocene sea which covered the Crete Senesi between 2.5 and 4.5 million years ago. There was something exceptional about these cypress trees. The subject was nature yet the object was man-made and while the composition was age-old, something about the metal made it unusual and ultra-contemporary; a modern twist on art imitating nature. We were told this wrought-iron work was produced by a family of blacksmiths and were directed to their workshop in an industrial zone of the valley full of pecorino farms and terracotta factories.
The Biagiotti brothers are third generation blacksmiths. Grandfather Alfredo started the business at the beginning of the twentieth century and now his grandchildren work along side their father and young nephew forging both their original creations and perfect reproductions of period pieces from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Biagiotti's works are fully realized by hand in the traditional way – using fire and hammer – while all their hand-drawn designs and specifications are recorded in an old diary from 1991.
The term "blacksmith" comes from the action of 'smiting' [or hitting] the 'black' metal, either iron or its derivative steel. The black comes from fire scale, a layer of oxides that form on the surface of the metal during the heating process. After black the metal glows red, orange, yellow and white; then it melts. Colour is an important indicator of the metals workability; the ideal heat for most forging is the bright yellow-orange colour which is also referred to as "forging heat". When the metal is the right temperature it can be forged, welded, heat treated and finished.
Gallery 19 is very proud to introduce this traditional Tuscan craft to its collection. We have started with the cypress trees we first fell in love with - available as a clump or individually in three different sizes – but hope to introduce more wrought-iron pieces in the near future. We have also imported some exceptional hand-painted earthenware and hand-gilded reproduction coat-of-arms sourced from the shop we originally saw the cypress trees in. We hope you enjoy this little piece of Tuscany at Gallery 19.
Have a great summer!
