Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820-1877)

Marble and Mosaic Pulpit in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, 1845

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Front and side elevations with insert ground plan
Pencil and gouache
Signed and dated:  Wyatt archt. 1845
22.5 x 35.5 cms

Literature:  Matthew Digby Wyatt, Specimens of the Geometrical Mosaic of the Middle Ages, plate 16

Price:  please apply to jbl@gallerylingard.com

Digby Wyatt stayed in Rome in the Autumn and Spring of 1845, during his extended sketch tour of Italy between 1844-46.  He found Santa Maria in Aracoeli a rich source of early Romanesque mosaic work and was particularly interested in the details of coloured mosaic seen on this marble pulpit.  He drew the pulpit mouldings, carved decoration and mosaic work in great detail, painting the small pieces of mosaic in colour piece by piece.

Digby (as he was known) called his sketches drawn on the spot, 'specimens' and he used several of these meticulous renderings to work up a larger, coloured and highly-finished study of this Pulpit which he published at Plate 16 of his highly acclaimed publication 'Specimens of the Geometrical Mosaic of the Middle Ages, 1848'.  The plate reproduces this drawing exactly as shown here in full colour with gold inlay and was accompanied by the following note:

"Plate no.16 is a careful reproduction of one of the marble Pulpits remaining in the interesting church of Sta Maria in Aracoeli, Rome.  Though not so elaborate as those of San Lorenzo, these ambones develop, in considerable dignity and much beauty, the primitive form of these essentials to Christian worship'.

Writing about mosaic work, Wyatt held that, "... mosaic has been made one of the most beautiful as well as the most enduring means of recording the graceful fancies of the architect that human ingenuity has yet devised".