[OPTICAL ILLUSIONS]. Motti piacevoli dedicati al bel sesso (and 3 additional engravings)

Paris: The Author, 1867. Very good. Together 4 items: one pamphlet and three separate engravings (see below). Small collection of rare and curious double-image optical illusions made by the very eccentric Lampridio Giovanardi (1811-1878), an Italian ebonist, inventor, and erstwhile engraver. For the distraction and amusement of his family and friends he created, in very limited numbers, small pamphlets and engravings, all crudely executed and hastily printed, of curious optical illusions known as "quadri cangianti" (changing pictures). Only about 25 engravings by Giovanardi are known today, including the the sheet of anthropomorphic capital letters known as the "Alfabeto Figurator" (ca. 1860) of which there is a a copy at Princeton Graphic Arts and the Beinecke.

Our pamphlet is entitled "Motti piacevoli dedicati al bel sesso" (Dedicated to the Fairer Sex) and was presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867 includes various proverbs and sayings, along with 6 crudely executed woodcut double image illusions which one can observe from two sides. This pamphlet is not listed in KVK or Worldcat.

The three loose engravings depict similar surrealistic optical illusions: there is an image of a pelican, which (with a bit of imagination) becomes a portrait of pope Pius VII in prayer; an anthropomorphic landscape that when rotated 90 degrees appears as a man's face in the tradition of Merian, Hollar and Kircher; and a man with a billowing costume which when turned upside down can be seen as the petal of a leaf.

Giovanardi is better known for his astonishly rendered tables that were decorated in the "quadretti faccettati" style and which -- unusually -- were made with non-wood materials such as metal and gold (Giovandari considered himself to be the inventor of this method). His ornamental marquetry was much appreciated in Italy, France and England. His "Italia Rotonda" table is considered to be one of the most elaborately inlaid Italian tables ever created. He presented another, equally fabulous inlaid table (the so-called "Crystal Palace table) at the Great Exhibition in London 1851 where it won a Gold Medal. Both tables are in the Collection Attilio Montorsi (Vignola) and have been meticulously described by Manrico Mezzi in two gigantic monographs (see below).

Nava writes: "[...] Many collections [of illustrations] bound and adorned by him thus came to delight the winter evenings of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, together with toys he himself built for his children! And at family vigils, sometimes cheered up by his witty and caustic sayings, among his relatives and friends, he amused himself by circulating certain little books of "Pleasant Sayings Dedicated to the Beautiful Gender"...in which witty proverbs, in couplets of rhymed hendecasyllables, alternate with small wooden engravings depicting heads of men, women or animals which change into a different image when the paper is turned upside down. He printed them in Paris, and collected many copies of these burlesque drawings in a separate booklet." (p. 166).

CONTENTS OF THE COLLECTION:

1. Motti piacevoli dedicati al bel sesso ("Pleasant Sayings Dedicated to the Fairer Sex"). Paris: 186[7]. 12mo, 12 pp. text printed on one side only + 6 woodcuts including two on pink paper, all on paper of various sizes, original yellow printed wrappers. Small holes in paper on various parts, otherwise in a good condition.

2. Il Pellicano. Immagine di Pio VII [Pelican. Image of Pius VII]. [S.l., n.d.]. Copper engraving, sheet: 210 x 155 mm, platemark: 155 x 107 mm. Very good.

3. [Anthropomorphic Landscape]. [S.l., n.d.]. Copper engraving, sheet: 210 x 310 mm; platemark: 185 x 237 mm. Folds in margins.

4. [A Man / A Leaf]. [S.l., n.d.]. Copper engraving, sheet: 290 x 225 mm, platemark: 200 x 135 mm. Portion of engraving not inked properly (SEE IMAGE), but the print itself is in a good condition.

LITERATURE:

Maria L. Nava, Una Testimonianza dell'Ottocento Provinziale. Lampridio Giovanardi e le sue tavole intarsiate, Atti e memorie, R. Deputazione di storia patria per le provincie modenesi, Ser. VIII, no. 2 (1949), pp. 163-171.

Manrico Murzi, Italia Rotonda: I fasti italici in un tavolo intarsiato da Lampridio Giovanardi. Vignola: A. Montorsi, 2007.

Ibid., Intarsio per un'esposizione. Vignola: A. Montorsi, 2014.