Mezzaro With Palm Trees, Printed Cotton Wall Hanging - Genoa, Italy Circa 1840

Circa 1840
Italy
Mezzaro with palm trees (Mezzaro alle latanie) or tree of life wall hanging, printed on cotton with a wood block in seven plant-based colors. The decor unfolds a paradise garden with a tree of life and a mound laden with fauna and flora with an assumed naturalism. Roses, daffodils, anemones, lilacs and flowering stems are scattered among the branches or scattered in flower baskets. A peacock near an urn, a cascading lake filled with cranes and ducks, or even birds and butterflies complete this scene where we observe fleeing deer in the background. The manufacture is definitely Genoese, probably that of Speich or Luigi Testori. The Mezzaro of Genoa are famous in the 19th century because they are the representation of a celestial paradise and an orientalist and romantic vision seen from the West. Their famous ancestors are the Indian trees of life or the palempores of the Coromandel coast, canvases painted in India in the 18th century. Note rare consolidation on the reverse, not visible on the front, as well as a slight dusting of the cream cotton background. Colors preserved and not insolated. Good general condition of conservation.
Dimensions: 252 cm x 260 cm.
Iconography: similar model in Cotoni Stampati e Mezzari by Margherita Rosina and Marzia Gallo, Genova 1993. Fig. 157, page 168.