French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Luxochrome postcards, card 3. Design: Domenico Mastroianni (1913). Quo vadis?: Eunice is kissing the statue of Petronius.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 276/3. Sculptobromure: Domenico Mastroianni (1918). Quo vadis?: Eunice is kissing the statue of Petronius.
Italian coloured postcard. Design: Domenico Mastroianni (N.N.) Quo vadis?: The Kiss of Eunice.
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, 1925. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni. Series on 'La Divina Commedia' (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) by Dante Alighieri.Caption: Inferno, Canto I. Dante lost in the dark woods.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 73. Sculptochromie by Domenico Mastroianni. Series Vie de Christ (Life of Christ, 1911). Scene Descente de la croix (Descent from the Cross).
Quo vadis?
Domenico Mastroianni was born in Arpino in 1876 to Pietro Mastroianni, a craftsman, and Angela Redivivo. His nephew Umberto was an artist too. His brother's grandson later became one of Italy's most famous actors, Marcello Mastroianni. One of Marcello's baptist names was Domenico. Domenico learnt woodworking in his father’s workshop. From a very young age, he showed great talent as a draughtsman. He received his first training in terracotta and ceramic work at the workshops that had been operating in Arpino since the early 19th century. Appreciated by the collector Carlo Quadrini, a member of one of Arpino’s wealthiest families, Domenico moved to Rome in 1894. He stayed as Quadrino's guest in Via del Babuino. He collaborated with the sculptor Baldassarre Surdi on various installations for his nativity scene.
He stayed in Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, London and Brussels, and above all in Paris, where he was captivated by Art Nouveau, to some extent also by Auguste Rodin, and by the dynamic style of H. Daumier’s works, from whom Domenico seems to have drawn the romantic idea of beauty to be found in modern society. He remained in Paris for a full twelve years. Domenico worked for several years as a self-taught sculptor. He created small clay busts of figures from history and literature. In 1903, he married Adele Durante in Rome. In France, they had two children: Alberto (1904-1974), who would become a draughtsman and illustrator, and Adriana (1906).
Domenico Mastroianni became known to the main audience because of his artworks made in clay and afterwards photographed to serve on widely distributed postcards, named Sculptobromure. Sometimes he overpainted the sculptures with saturated paint, possibly oil painting, then called Sculptochromie. In 1913, the French editor Armand Noyer (A.N.) made a series of 18 cards of his work with scenes from the novel 'Quo vadis?' by Henryk Sienkiewicz. The first series was released in the year the Cines film company of Rome released its blockbuster epic Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913), adapted from the same novel by Sienkiewicz.
The film made a massive impression worldwide and was shown in opera houses and legitimate theatres with choirs and orchestras. Even royalty went to see it. The film set a new standard for Italian epics on Antiquity. It would be interesting to know if Mastroianni's postcard series was released before or after the release of the film, but we don't know. In 1914, Noyer made a second postcard series of painted clayworks with slightly different views, such as a shortened view of Ursus fighting the bull.
In 1918, Noyer made a sepia postcard series of the unpainted clayworks, the Sculptobromure. Finally, an unknown Italian editor used Mastroianni's unpainted clayworks for an undated postcard series, but the publisher used a kind of watercolour ink to colour parts of the image.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 1. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Vinicius greets Petronius. Eunice, Petronius' slave, is secretly in love with her master.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 2. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Lygia and Vinicius in the garden of Aulus. She draws a fish in the sand, a Christian symbol.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 4. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Lygia is taken away from Aulus' house by the Pretorians. Ursus promises to help her.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 5. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Ursus takes Lygia away from the orgy at Nero's palace.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 6. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Vinicius and Chilo secretly attend Peter's preaching in the catacombs of Ostrianum.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 7. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Ursus smothers Croton.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 8. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Vinicius and Chrysothemis.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 9. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: Peter gives his benediction to Lygia and Vinicius.
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 10. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis?: The Meeting of Two Powers (Nero and Peter).
French postcard by A.N. (Noyer), Paris, series of 18 Sculptochromie postcards, card no. 18. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni, 1913. Quo vadis: Epilogue: Vinicius and Lygia in Sicily.
Allegories, Napoleon, saints and divine comedy
Domenico Mastroianni's working method was called 'sculpture éphémère' (ephemeral sculpture). The blog Images Musicales: "Firstly, and with astonishing speed and skill, Mastroianni modelled realistic reliefs on clay plates of about 50 cm x 70 cm. Then the plates were photographed, and these clichés were reproduced as postcards. As soon as a plate had been photographed, it was destroyed to prepare for the next scenes. Alas, not one of his plates survived." Mastroianni's sculptogravures are the plastic transposition of the lines and chromatic effects achieved by Gustave Doré through the technique of engraving. In many cases, references and specific allusions to more than one engraving can be identified. It illustrates Mastroianni's attention to, appreciation of, and sensitivity towards the figurative choices of the French master.
At least from 1909 onward, the Parisian editor Armand Noyer (A.N.) edited these postcards. In the early 1910s, just before the First World War, Mastroianni was most active, coinciding with the peak in early French and Italian cinema. At the time, there were various French film adaptations of the rise and fall of Napoleon, entitled L'épopée napoléonienne / Napoleon Bonaparte (Lucien Nonguet, 1903), Napoléon (Pathé, director unknown, 1909), and Napoléon (Louis Feuillade, 1912). Mastroianni created his ephemeral sculpture version series 'Vie de Napoléon', released on postcards in 1913.
Biblical films were also extremely popular in early cinema, in particular in France. There were multiple versions of the life of Christ by Pathé Frères as well as competing versions by companies like Gaumont. So, Mastroianni's 1911 series on The Life of Christ was no surprise. Despite the division of Church and State in France in 1905, Catholicism was an important presence in France and Europe at large in the early 1910s in Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, etc. The French Maison de la Bonne Presse released many lantern slide series, postcards and films in the 1900s and 1910s. In addition to the New Testament, Mastroianni also made a series on the Old Testament, as well as a series on various Catholic saints. In addition to these series on well-known celebrities, saints and famous literature, Domenico Mastroianni also made countless fantasy cards, like the series 'Allégorie' (e.g. in 1911 and 1913). Often these cards were Christmas, New Year's and Easter cards, using both bucolic settings and modernity like aeroplanes.
The changing cultural climate in France forced him to return to Italy, and in 1913, he settled in Castello di Ladislao di Arpino. There, he opened a studio where he continued to work, facing difficulties due to the outbreak of the First World War. Mastroianni used his working method for propagandistic postcards in Italy. Due to the 1915 earthquake, Domenico returned to Rome. In Rome, he opened a studio at 51 Via Margutta, which would later pass to his son Alberto. In the 1920s, he did an ephemeral sculpture series for a postcard series about Dante Alighieri's 'La divina commedia' (The Divine Comedy, with 18 postcards for Hell, 14 for Purgatory and 10 for Paradise), which was released by the Milanese editor Alberto Traldi. From 1923 to 1926, he took in his nephew Umberto, a student on the evening courses at the Accademia di San Marcello, and became his teacher. Umberto later revealed that he had ‘breathed in the serene classicism and splendid solemnity of its art treasures’.
His commissions for the Quirinale Palace earned him the title of Knight of the Crown from King Victor Emmanuel III. In 1931, Domenico Mastroianni stopped making his ephemeral sculptures. He was one of the founding members of the CASA (Ceramica Artistica Società Aquesiana) ceramics factory in Acquapendente. In 1958, he created the sculptural groups for A. Manzoni’s 'The Betrothed' for the Casa degli Studi Manzoniani in Milan. Mastroianni passed away in 1961. He was 86.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. ?14. Artwork: Sculptochromie by Domenico Mastroianni. New Year's card for the year 1909.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 136, 1911. Artwork: Sculptobromure by Domenico Mastroianni. Allégorie: Source of Love. The card also exists as a New Year's card.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 156, 1911. Artwork: Sculptogravure by Domenico Mastroianni. Caption: Happy New Year. The New Bird.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 64, 1911. Artwork: Sculptochromie by Domenico Mastroianni. Vie de Christ (The Life of Christ): Christ meets his Mother.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 16, 1913. Artwork: Sculptobromure by Domenico Mastroianni. Life of Napoleon (Vie de Napoléon): Napoleon, Friedland, 14 June 1807.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 258, 1913. Artwork: Sculptobromure by Domenico Mastroianni. Allégorie: Happy New Year. Everything Passes.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 28, 1916. Artwork: Sculptobromure by Domenico Mastroianni. Vieux Testament (Old Testament): The Golden Calf. Moses destroyed the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments.
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, 1925. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni. La Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso): Inferno, Canto III. Dante and Virgil at the Styx.
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, 1925. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni. La Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso): Purgatorio, Canto VII. Dante and Virgil at the Valley of the Princes.
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, 1925. Artwork: Domenico Mastroianni. La Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso): Paradiso, Canto XXVI. Dante and Beatrice in Heaven, where he is questioned by the great Saints of the Church, St. Peter, St. James and St. John.
French postcard by A.N. (Armand Noyer), Paris, no. 132. Artwork: Sculptobromure by Domenico Mastroianni. Caption: Merry Christmas.
Sources: Images musicales, Wikipedia (Italian and German) and the information on the postcards.
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