ITALY: COMO HONOURS VOLTA BATTERY CENTENARY 1899 SILK WOOVEN ADVERTISING PICTURE

Description

Antique woven silk picture showing a panorama of Como (Italy) from 1899 titled:
COMO ONORA VOLTA NEL CENTENARIO DELLA PILA 1899.
In May 1899, the town of Como inaugurated an universal exhibition organized for the centenary of the invention of the battery by Alessandro Volta. The exhibition, set up in honour and celebration of an illustrious citizen of Como, was not focused on electricity alone, but also on decorative arts and the silk and furniture industry, including a special section of artistic objects from the territories of the Diocese of Como curated by Santo Monti, author a few years later of a pioneering study on the arts in Northwestern Lombardy. The operation resonated with national and international press: a congress of electricians was presented at the exhibition, anticipating the famous international symposium of physics that would be held in Como later in 1927 with the participation of, among others, Fermi, Marconi and many Nobel prizes in a changed political and cultural context. The exhibition halls, designed by engineer Eugenio Linati, occupied much of the area then destined to become a public garden, on which the first museum dedicated to Volta's work, the Tempio Voltiano, was founded in 1928. The exhibition architectures were characterized by a magniloquent style in a fusion of classical, allegorical, eclectic elements, in order to provide a valuable framework for the public rituals of the inauguration in presence of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita. Mostly destroyed by a fire, from which the hall of Belle Arti survived, the exhibition buildings were quickly reconstructed and reassembled.
This picture is a rare souvenir from that time (now almost 120 years old!), it measures 13" (32.5 cm) x 10" 1/2 (27 cm) and it's in excellent condition showing only minor browning at borders. There is an artist name at middle bottom area as follows: "Maccagno. dis." It comes onto a fine old wooden pannel to which it rest (it's not affixed) which bears an old label of the company which originally sold it (or framed it) back in the early 1900. It is from Montevideo, Uruguay and this is not only a rare collectible silk wooven picture brought by an Italian immigrant over a hundred years ago, but also a charming witness of an era gone but not forgotten.