The Sculptogravures of Domenico Mastroianni

A fascinating postcard genre, widely distributed during the early 20th Century, was the sculptogravure. Domenico Mastroianni (1876-1962) was the inventor and the master of this genre. He made ‘ephemeral’ sculptures from simple modelling clay, for the sole purpose of being photographed. Unlike conventional sculptures, which can be viewed from various angles, his figures were intended to be viewed only from the front. The resulting photographs were printed and distributed on around 600 different postcards by the French editor A. Noyer and the Italian editor A. Traldi. Mastroianni dealt with both sacred and secular themes, and his postcard series on 'Quo vadis?' and 'La divina commedia' were particularly successful. Was Mastroianni inspired by early films, or was it the other way around?


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.

Pascale Petit

In the late 1950s, sweet and sexy French actress Pascale Petit (1938) formed serious competition for Brigitte Bardot as the Sex Symbol of French cinema. She appeared in more than fifty films from 1957 to 2001.


Vintage postcard.


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 4068. Photo: N.V. Standaardfilms, Amsterdam. Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / Youthful Sinners (Marcel Carné, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 4069. Photo: NV Standaardfilms, Amsterdam. Jacques Charrier and Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / The Cheaters (Marcel Carné, 1958).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/65.


Dutch postcard by Internationale Filmpers, Amsterdam, no. WPS 32, for Song Parade. Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / Youthful Sinners (Marcel Carné, 1958).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/90. Photo: Sam Lévin.


West German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 3048. Photo: Constantin-Film. Pascale Petit in Julie la rousse / Julie the Redhead (Claude Boissol, 1959). The German title was Rote Haare - freche Lippen.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 29. Photo: Unifrance / Ufa. Pascale Petit in Faibles femmes / Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959).


Yugoslav postcard by Studio Sombor, no. 203.

Seductive femme fatale

Pascale Petit was born as Anne-Marie Petit in Paris, France, in 1938. She had a brother and a sister. Petit spent her childhood and adolescence in Vaires-sur-Marne. Before becoming an actress, she worked as a beautician.

In 1956, married the actor Jacques Portet, from whom she divorced in 1960. She worked at the Carita hair salon, where she was spotted by a client, the actress Françoise Lugagne. Lugagnne was the wife of the director-actor Raymond Rouleau, who was searching for young actresses for his directorial debut, Les Sorcières de Salem / The Crucible.

Petit made her cinema debut in the role of Mary Warren, erstwhile accuser at the Salem witch trials of 1692 and later confessed 'witch', in Les Sorcières de Salem / The Crucible (Raymond Rouleau, 1957), starring Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Famous author Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the screenplay, based on the play by Arthur Miller.

The following year, she was awarded the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1958 for her role as the servant girl Rosalie in Une Vie / One Life (Alexandre Astruc, 1958), starring Maria Schell and Christian Marquand. Despite never having had any formal acting training, she was awarded the prestigious Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1958, presented annually to a promising young French actress.

Then followed her role as a rich, existentialist kid in Les tricheurs / The Cheaters (Marcel Carné, 1958), which made her a star. A scene in which one of her breasts was shown caused a sensation. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Of the cast, Pascale Petit stands out as a trendy young girl whose willingness to follow the crowd leads to tragedy." Upon the film’s release, she was regarded as one of the most talented actresses of the time, her naturalness and spontaneity setting her apart from the more conventional actresses of the day. Famous French film critic and historian Georges Sadoul even ranked her among the ‘four most gifted actors’ of the era.


West German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-312. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/44.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/89. Photo: Sam Levin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/88. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/160. Photo: Fried Agency / Ufa.


French postcard by PSG, no. 33, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1067, offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by PSG, no. 70, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German and Italian B pictures

Pascale Petit followed up her success with a title role in the comedy Julie la rousse / Julie the Redhead (Claude Boissol, 1959) opposite Daniel Gélin. Soon, she received more roles as a seductive femme fatale, and for a while, the media compared PP to BB, Brigitte Bardot. She played in such comedies as Faibles femmes / Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959) with Alain Delon and Mylène Demongeot, and Une fille pour l'été / A Girl for the Summer (Edouard Molinaro, 1960) opposite Micheline Presle.

In 1959, at the Moscow Film Festival, she met the poet and actor Giani Esposito and later married him during the filming of Une fille pour l'été / A Girl for the Summer (Edouard Molinaro, 1960). She followed him to Italy, where the couple had a daughter, Nathalia, known as Bojidarka, born in 1963.

She portrayed Cleopatra during the internecine struggles with her brother Ptolemy in The Italian-French coproduction Una regina per Cesare / Cléopâtre une reine pour César / A Queen for Caesar (Piero Pierotti, Victor Tourjansky, 1962) with George Ardisson and Gordon Scott. 20th Century Fox bought the rights for the film to keep it out of release lest it compete with their own Cleopatra (y Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor.

In the mid-1960s, Pascale Petit’s film career shifted towards B-movies, particularly German and Italian productions, which caused her to fade from the French spotlight. An example is the Spaghetti Western Joe... cercati un posto per morire! / Find a Place to Die (Giuliano Carnimeo, Hugo Fregonese, 1968) with Jeffrey Hunter.

In 1969, she divorced Esposito and married American actor Ray Danton, her co-star of the Spy thriller Corrida pour un espion / Code Name: Jaguar (Maurice Labro, 1965) and the Spanish/West German/Italian Western The Last Mercenary (Mel Welles a.k.a. Dieter Müller, 1968).


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 5153. A gift by Marlene Pilaete.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 765. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 785. Photo: Studio Vauclair.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 807. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 824. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 825. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 825. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 826. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 827. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

A small Dutch gem

In the early 1970s, Pascale Petit tried to make a comeback in France, as well as in the cinema with Chronique d'un Couple... / Chronicle of a Couple (Roger Coggio, 1971), as well as in the music scene with 'Il ne reste que moi...' (What's Left is Me, 1973).

The success was lukewarm, and in the following decades, she worked as a character actress in mostly unremarkable international films and TV productions.

Interesting was a small Dutch gem, A Strange Love Affair (Eric De Kuyper, Paul Verstraten, 1984). Her most recent film is Ville à vendre / City for Sale (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1992), starring Michel Serrault and Richard Bohringer.

She also appeared in two TV films by Brigitte Bardot's Svengali, Roger Vadim, the mini-series La nouvelle tribu / The New Tribe (1996), and Un coup de baguette magique / A Magic Wand (1997), both featuring Marie-Christine Barrault. In 2022, she published a memoir entitled 'Une vie sans tricher' (A Life without Cheating). In 2023, she appeared in the Netflix series Pax Massilia / Blood Coast (Olivier Marchal, 2023).

Pascale Petit has two daughters, Nathalia, from her marriage to Giani Esposito and Mickaëla (1966), from her relationship with Ray Danton. At the age of twenty, Nathalia became an ambassador for Disney France. Under the name Douchka, she recorded in the 1980s numerous songs for children, inspired by Walt Disney cartoon heroes.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1239. Photo: Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof.


Dutch postcard, ca. 1961.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam, no. 5543.


West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4825. Photo: Fried Agency.


French postcard, no. 7. Photo: Sam Lévin. Mexichrome.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 39. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 64. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, ca. 1961.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/134. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 341. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Gérard Decaux / Ufa.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie - Page Now Defunct), AllMovie, Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb. Thanks to Marlène Pilaete for the additional info!