The miniature edition of The Rubaiyat (5cm wide by 7cm tall) illustrated by Guido Maria Stella was published by S. Rosen of 40–41 Piazza San Marco, Venice, in 1906. It used FitzGerald’s first edition, together with his Preface to that edition, and is Potter #169. Its front cover is shown in Fig.1a and its six illustrations in Figs.1b, 01c, 01d, 01e, 01f & 01g. The illustrations are printed in black in the copy used here, but, as Potter notes, in some copies they are printed in red. Either way, they are not particularly impressive illustrations, not helped any by the miniature size of the edition and the relatively poor quality of the printing, but nevertheless this curious little volume has always held a fascination for me, and both artist and publisher turn out to be of considerable interest, as we shall see. First, though, let us look at the illustrations.
Fig.1b is the (generic?) frontispiece, with title–page, which presumably depicts (the youthful ?) Omar and his Beloved in a Rose Garden, Omar holding, in his left hand, what could be either a wine glass (ubiquitous in The Rubaiyat) or an hour glass (representing, for example, Time “slipping underneath our Feet” in quatrain 37 or the regret that “Youth’s sweet–scented Manuscript should close” in quatrain 72.) I incline to the latter view since an older Omar appears in the illustrations which follow. The artist’s signature “G. M. / STELLA” appears in a scroll to the bottom left of the illustration.
Fig.1c faces quatrains 7 and 8 on p.48 and clearly relates to the former “Come fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring &c”. The signature “G.M.S. 1905 (?)” appears in a scroll to the bottom left.
Fig.1d faces quatrains 25 and 26 on p.61 and clearly relates to the latter, “The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.” The initials G.M.S. can be seen in the bottom right hand corner, with the date 05 (?) in the bottom left.
Fig.1e faces quatrains 31 and 32 on p.64 and clearly relates to the former, “...and on the Throne of Saturn sate.” The initials G.M.S. appear in the bottom right hand corner.
Fig.1f faces quatrains 51 and 52 on p.76 and clearly relates to the latter, “And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky, /.../ Lift not thy hands to It for help &c.” The contents of this illustration are not as clear as one would like, but careful examination reveals three figures lifting up their hands towards the sky, or rather, towards a butterfly hovering above them. The three figures are a woman, on the left, a helmeted warrior with sword and battle–axe next to her, and a figure riding a horse behind both. The butterfly can signify the transience of youth and life on account of the brevity of its own life, but here it seems more likely to symbolise fickleness on account of its erratic and random movements – the fickleness of Fate as doled out by the Heavens. The precise significance of the three appellants, though, remains unclear, though I do wonder if the overall message is that neither military might nor feminine wiles can counter the decrees of the relentlessly revolving heavens. The initials G.M.S. can be seen in the bottom right hand corner.
Fig.1g faces quatrains 71 and 72 on p.88 and would seem to relate to the latter, “Alas that Spring should vanish with the Rose! &c”, Omar seemingly contemplating the falling petals of a dead or dying rose. The female figure in the background could be the personification of Spring. The initials G.M. / S. appear in the bottom left hand corner.
The illustrations, then, are mostly rather pedestrian and literal depictions of their associated quatrains. [The illustrations can be browsed here.] Incidentally, at this point it is worth noting that the Rosen Rubaiyat was re–issued by T. Fisher Unwin of London in a virtually identical edition, save that the name of the publisher was changed on the cover (Fig.2a) and title–page (Fig.2b), it was undated, and the Rosen logo was removed from the cover. Potter #88 dates it to [1911].
Let us now look at the publisher Rosen and his other publications, for The Rubaiyat was one of a series.
The location of Rosen’s business premises at 40–41 Piazza San Marco was certainly prestigious, being in one of the most famous places in a famous city, frequented then, as now, by tourists from all over Europe (it today serves as an exclusive shop selling Rolex watches.) Rosen clearly catered for the tourist trade. Fig.3a shows the front of a folding tourist map of the city, and Fig.3b its accompanying advert (in both French and English) for Rosen’s book selling business. Figs.4a & 4b show the English and French editions of Rosen’s photo–illustrated guide to the city. Though our artist was not involved in illustrating these, he did do the front cover for a French guide to the Venetian Lido published by C. Ferrari of Venice shown in Fig.5. The guide itself is undated, but just below the bottom left of the picture is the inscription: “Guido Maria Stella, Venezia – 1906.” Whether Stella’s engravings were used in guides to other parts of Venice published by Ferrari, in French or otherwise, and whether Rosen published his illustrated guide to the city in other languages besides English and French (German is one likely possibility) is not clear, as these guides are surprisingly uncommon, presumably because they were so often consigned to the rubbish bin at the end of the holiday.
Still on the tourist trail, a surprising number of postcards sold by Rosen have survived the ravages of time. A typical specimen is shown in Fig.6, this particular one being sent to someone in England at an illegible date, though I have seen other examples addressed to people in various countries bearing date stamps between about 1906 and 1912.
As regards Rosen’s edition of The Rubaiyat this, as stated above, was one of a series of matching miniature books whose subject matter was largely literature, very commonly English. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Fig.7a) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (Fig.7b), both published in 1906, are two examples. The latter is particularly interesting, for although he is not named on the title–page, Stella did do two illustrations for it – a frontispiece portrait of the poetess (Fig.8a) and a tailpiece depicting her tomb in Florence (Fig.8b) (1) – the signature G.M. Stella can be seen in the bottom right hand corner of both. Another example of the series, this time in German, is a selection of the poems of Nikolaus Lenau, Lenau’s Gedichte (Fig.7c), again published by Rosen in 1906.
Note the red logo common to all of these – I do not know exactly what it signifies, but it looks to me like a stylised prow of a gondola with the stylised head of a pigeon – both associated with Venice, the latter with the Piazza San Marco in particular. But of course this is just a guess.
How many of the series were illustrated by Guido Maria Stella, I do not know precisely, particularly since he is not always named as illustrator, as we have just seen. But at the time of writing I know of only one other example besides the two just mentioned, this being the subject of the next section.
Before moving on, though, I should point out that Rosen’s miniature series was only one of several series issued by him, the same title sometimes appearing in more than one series. It is not my intention here to cover Rosen’s output in detail, though that in itself would be worthy of study, but the following will give readers some idea of the scope and variety of his issues: Fig.9a is the cover of Pompeo Molmenti’s The Renaissance in Venice (1907); Fig.9b the cover of Antonio Santalena’s Lioni di San Marco (1906); Fig.9c the cover of Lady Lindsay’s Lays and Lyrics (which also featured in the miniature series – see Fig.9d - both published in 1907); and Fig.9e the cover of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis (translated into Italian, published in 1905.) This last features Rosen’s logo ‘shouted from the rooftops’, though now the open beak of the ‘pigeon’ and its chin seem to depict an R (for Rosen?) Curiously, the back cover (Fig.9f) features a crown of thorns, perhaps indicative of Wilde’s own harsh punishment.
It is to be noted that Rosen sometimes used Stella’s illustrations to decorate the covers of other books. Fig.10e below, for example, was used on the cover of an edition of Byron’s Childe Harold (1906), as shown in Fig.9g.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, translated into rhymed English by John Addington Symonds (2), with the cover shown in Fig.10a, was published by Rosen, like each of the foregoing miniatures, in 1906 (though Rosen also seems to have published it in at least two different covers / formats, one in 1905.) It contained six illustrations by Stella, and being such a rare book, I reproduce all six here as Figs.10b, 10c, 10d, 10e, 10f and 10g. All are signed, though not always clearly, and some are dated as well. The titles of some of the sonnets seem to be Symonds’s own, but since this is the edition illustrated by Stella, I retain them here without comment.
Fig.10b relates to Sonnet II, “On Dante Alighieri” and presumably depicts Dante and his beloved Beatrice.
Fig.10c relates to Sonnet XVI, “Love and Art” and shows an artist (Michelangelo ?) painting his (beloved ?) model.
Fig.10d relates to Sonnet XX, “The Garland and the Girdle” and shows the female beauty to whom the sonnet is addressed, bedecked in flowers and ribbons, walking her pet dog in a garden, with a fountain in the background.
Fig.10e relates to Sonnet XLIV, “The Defence of Night” and presumably shows the Spirit of the Night dispensing the benefits of sleep on the inhabitants of the city below.
Fig.10f relates to Sonnet LXIV, “A Wasted Brand – After the Death of Vittoria Colonna” and seems to depict Michelangelo stood before an altar bearing the extinguished ‘fire’ of his much–loved Vittoria.
Fig.10g relates to Sonnet LXXVII, “The Blood of Christ”. Though the theme of the poem is Christ’s forgiveness of sinners, of whom the poet confesses himself to be one, the illustration is a bit puzzling, unless Michelangelo be represented by ARS (Art) – here female – on the left, with the forgiveness of his sins through Christ by FIDES (Faith) on the right, again female, she bearing the host and chalice representing the body and blood of Christ.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
At this point, before taking a look at Stella’s other art–work, it is best to take a look at his life story (3).
He was born Guido Maria Balsamo in Turin on 11 May 1882, the son of Luigi Balsamo and his wife Celestina (or Celeste) Sommariva. In 1889, sometime after the death of her husband, Celestina re–married, to Alessandro Stella. Thus our artist became, in full, Guido Maria Balsamo Stella, in later life sometimes abbreviated to Guido Balsamo Stella, sometimes – as in the case of the books for Rosen – to Guido Maria Stella. In 1892 his half–brother, Giovani, was born. The age difference, plus differing temperaments and interests, meant that the two were never very close. However, Alessandro regarded Guido as his own son, rather than as a step–son, and, as we shall see presently, in 1905 Guido did two engravings for a now extremely rare prose–poem written by his step–father, Alessandro.
In 1896, the family moved to Venice. Virtually nothing appears to be known about Stella’s early education, in art or otherwise, and nothing about how his artistic abilities first manifested. The first glimpse of his artistic training only comes in Venice, at the Ca’Pesaro Studios on the Grand Canal. These were effectively the top floor of the Palazzo Pesaro, a palace which, in 1898, the Duchess Felicita Bevilacqua La Masa had bequeathed to the Municipality of Venice on condition that it be run as a cultural and artistic centre (which it still is today), its third floor being made available, virtually rent–free, as a studio for young artists, especially those from poorer families, with provision for the exhibition of their work, which might otherwise be ignored by the main and rather elitist galleries. Stella worked and studied there from February 1901 to June 1903. During that period he had had some success in getting his paintings exhibited in Milan and Turin, as well as Venice. Unfortunately, in 1903 the Venice authorities decided not just to start asking the resident artists of Ca’Pesaro for rent, but also to demand back rent for their full period of residence, a considerable amount in Stella’s case. Amusingly, these demands seem to have been instigated to some extent by the rowdiness of some of the artists and their friends, who were, so to speak, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood. At any rate, Stella, who seems to have been at the centre of the trouble, left there (he appears to have been evicted in the end!) and enrolled at the Free School of the Nude at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, his studies at which were to stand him in good stead, as we shall see. He remained there until 1905, during which period, in 1904, he took part in the first National Exhibition of Artistic Posters and Ex Libris, held in Venice, and at which he earned his first official recognition. As mentioned above, it was in 1905 that he did the cover design and two illustrations for a prose–poem by his step–father, Alessandro, a booklet of 20 pages bearing the title La Canzone Sacra al Colore e al Dolore di Venezia (The Sacred Song of the Colour and Pain of Venice.) This is extremely rare, and I regret that I have never seen a copy, but one of its rather curious symbolist illustrations is the etching shown in Fig.11a – it could depict either the (dead ?) body of a naked woman floating in a pool in front of a Renaissance–type Palace, or, since the Palace itself is partially in ruins, the collapsed statue of a fountain. It is not a brilliant piece of art–work, to be sure, but it is interesting historically as one of the earliest of what was to become Stella’s forte – the etching. A finer example – again of a symbolist nature – is shown in Fig.11b, “La Cortigiana” (The Courtesan), dated 1905. This presumably depicts Death as a skeletal Courtesan, with a skeletal dog and cat snarling at each other in the foreground, and with a skeletal bird flying above. Even the tree on the right is dead. It is signed “G.M.Stella” at the bottom right, with “Venezia” to the bottom left. Both of these, of course, are contemporary with his illustrations for The Rubaiyat and The Sonnets of Michelangelo, and taken in conjunction with the slightly later symbolist etchings which follow, make one wonder why Stella wasn’t more adventurous in his illustrations for The Rubaiyat in particular. But then perhaps Rosen asked him to stick to the text!
In 1905, he left Italy for almost 15 years, though he did return for brief visits, to Venice in particular, to take part in exhibitions. First, he moved to Munich, at that time a centre for the avant–garde, where he subsequently studied under the Swiss painter and etcher Albert Welti, who had been a student of Arnold Böcklin, and much influenced by him. As a result some of Welti’s paintings, such as “Walpurgis Night” and “Fog Rider”, and more so his etchings, like the extraordinary “Devil’s Bridge” and “Heaven’s Gifts”, had a nightmarish character. Stella was certainly influenced by Welti, though he was already a symbolist by inclination, as demonstrated by Figs.11a & 11b, and by the illustrations which follow, in which one can see the possible influences of more famous artists like Odilon Redon, Felicien Rops, Max Klinger and Gustav Klimt.
In Munich in 1906–7 he did a number of etchings of a symbolist nature which were curiously signed with the pseudonym Sigurd Mateo Laila, an anagram of Guido Maria Stella (some of these were exhibited at the 7th Biennial Art Exhibition in Venice in 1907.) It is not clear why he adopted this pseudonym, as he seems never to have used it again (aside from on a bookplate he did for himself in 1912, but we shall turn to bookplates later.) Four are shown here as Fig.12a “La Fortuna” (Fortune or Luck); Fig.12b "La Fede" (here the Faith of Women – La Foi Mulièbre); Fig.12c “Il Giudizio” (The Judgement, here clearly in relation to childbirth); and Fig.12d “Veritas” (Truth). Notice the serpent common to the first three – it is tempting to see the central figure in Fig.12b as Eve, holding the apple of temptation in her left hand and reaching towards a model of the Basilica of St. Mark with her right; and of course the Judgement of Fig.12c could be that of Eve in Genesis 3.16 (“in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children”). There is no serpent in the fourth, but there is a bat and a somewhat fearsome lion which is snarling at the figure of Mercury, Messenger of the Gods. The figure on the right is holding aloft the Flame of Truth (truth presumably in relation to embracing couple in the centre) which makes one wonder if these four etchings are interlinked views of Male and Female co–existence, for it is curious that in Fig.12a a naked male seems to be pursuing a winged and naked Goddess, the serpent perhaps being representative of female temptation.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Though Fig.12d was done in Munich in 1907, Stella also appears to have been in Stockholm that year, for at least one of his etchings “Phantasie der Dammerung” (Twilight Fantasy), shown in Fig.13, is signed “G.M. Stella – Stoccolma 1907” – note that it too features a bat. Also in Stockholm, in February 1908 he married artist Anna Akerdhal. It turned out to be a long and happy marriage.
In 1909–10 he was back in Munich again, this time, studying under Professor Hugo von Habermann at the Academy of Fine Arts there. Habermann, whose professorship initially seems to have been an honorary one bestowed by the Price Regent of Bavaria, but one officially ratified later in 1905, was himself an avant–garde artist, and one who shared Stella’s enthusiasm for the nude. But to get back to Stella, curiously, given his history, in 1909 he exhibited two pictures in the second collective exhibition at the Ca’Pesaro gallery in Venice, one of the house of the Swedish poet Bellmans and the other of the old Jewish ghetto in Venice, giving one pause for thought over whether Stella had paid his back–rent or not! It was during this period that his production of ex libris etchings came to the fore, though he had produced some as early as 1905 (these are the subject of the next section.) Throughout this period and subsequently he continued to produce some interesting symbolist etchings, many variously exhibited in Munich and Venice. Fig.14a, titled “I Mali Pensieri” (Evil Thoughts – dated 1909) shows a plump medusa–like nude seated on a bloated toad (the toad presumably here as a symbol of evil, often associated with witches); Fig.14b “La Mala Coscienza” (Bad Conscience – dated 1911) shows a shamed (?) naked young woman trampling on a three–headed hydra (the hydra traditionally breathed out poison, here, perhaps, in reference to a gossipy cause of the guilty conscience); Fig.14c “Kriegs Jahr 1914” (War Year 1914) showing a Valkyrie (?) scattering the seeds of hostility (?) over the battlefield below; and Fig.14d “Pigritia” (Laziness – dated 1915) showing a death–like figure, with a scythe (surely Death himself, then), in a rickety cart (with skeletal wheels!) being drawn by an almost skeletal horse, he scene being overlooked by an owl in the background. It would be interesting to know why Death is here considered lazy, needing a horse and cart to collect his victims. (This was apparently done as an illustration for an edition of Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Körkarlen (The Driver), though I regret I have never seen a copy, so I do not know if some reference in it explains the illustration.)
I cannot resist adding one other etching here (Fig.14e), dating from 1914, though whether it is symbolist or satirical in nature is not clear – it could conceivably be both, of course. It is a complete mystery as to what this strange almost surreal procession represents. At its head is a woman sitting in a cart, holding a pile of books, being towed and pushed towards a centaur dressed as a circus ring–master, to the right of which is a dancing woman with a bird’s head. The cart is followed by a hiker, a bird–headed man, a naked drunken woman riding a huge goat, an archer, a nude woman riding a stag back to front, and a puzzling variety of other figures. On the left, note the man, about to be served a glass of beer, sitting at a table underneath a tree from which a bird is hanging by its neck. To the far left, is a man smoking a pipe, and behind him is the profile portrait of a man, drawn to a different scale. This is presumably the artist, his signature “G. B. Stella” appearing above the smoking man, though his signature “G.B. Stella 1914” also appears in the clock above the centaur. The inscription on the far right, above the cart, reads: “Werner Warncke, Munchen, Finkenstr.2, bittet um freundlich Beachtung der Einlage”, which means “Werner Warncke, Munich, Finkenstrasse 2, please give your kind attention to the enclosed.” Firstly, Werner Warncke, with a slightly different spelling of his surname, was the man for whom Stella did the bookplate in Fig.18b below. Secondly, as Roger Paas has discovered, Warncke was a Munich book dealer. Does this, perhaps, explain the books in the cart in the procession ? Possibly, but the cart is such a small part of this bizarre procession, that it is difficult to believe that book dealing is the whole story. And what is “the enclosed” and who is being asked to give their kind attention to it ? Even more puzzling is that Fig.14e was done in the lower margin of an etching commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dyckerhoff & Son Portland cement factory (Fig.14f), and quite what, if anything, Warncke or this strange procession had to do with that is anybody’s guess. I have seen no explanation of it, and can offer none myself!
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
But it should not be thought that Stella’s output was exclusively symbolist. He had a fascination for industrial landscapes, building construction, factories and workshop scenes. Fig.15a, showing a factory on the Rhine, dated 1912, and Fig.15b showing the construction of a bridge in Stockholm, dated 1916, are two typical examples. Fig.15c is a rather nice picture of a Venice festival dated 1913 – surely a suitable candidate for one of Rosen’s tourist guides. Fig.15d shows Stella’s take on the Temptation of St. Antony, dated 1915. a subject depicted by many artists, of course, as a great excuse for depicting naked women, though Stella’s introduction of a vulture into the proceedings is unusual, to say the least! Fig.15e is a picture of an unnamed man sitting in a rocking–chair, dated 1916, and Fig.15f depicts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, dated 1921. Stella is reported to have done a companion illustration of Noah’s Ark in the same year, but no illustration of it is available. Both were seemingly done as illustrations for an edition of the Old Testament, though I am not aware of any published Old Testament actually containing them (4a). Rather later, though the date is uncertain, he did do an etching of the Deluge, here shown as Fig.15g, which may (or may not!) have had similar content (4b). Fig.15h depicts the goddess Diana as a huntress, here of a swan, dated 1922. This last illustration seems more akin to expressionism than symbolism – reminiscent, perhaps, of some of the women depicted by the likes of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or Emil Nolde. His “Woman of Soriso” is in a similar style, even though done much later, in 1934 (Fig.15i). (Soriso, incidentally, was where Stella’s mother married his step–father, and was a place for which the artist always felt a great attachment. It seems likely that some of his early education took place there. He spent some time there in 1935 and his mother died there in 1938.)
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Returning now to some biographical details, in 1914 he exhibited eight etchings at the 11th biennial International Art Exhibition at Venice, one of which was Fig.15a. (Also exhibited was another of his atmospheric industrial scenes, “Altiforni” (Blast Furnaces).) Again in 1914, he was commissioned to do twelve large oil paintings on the theme of the Legend of Orpheus for a villa at Feldafing, on the west side of Lake Starnberg, about 20 miles south–west of Munich. The outbreak of the First World War, though, forced him and his wife to move from Germany to Sweden, where he encountered the Orrefors glassworks which had recently moved into the field of decorative glass house–ware. This was to be an inspiration to Stella, and it is for his luxurious engraved glassware, produced back in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s, that is now one of his principal claims to fame. I do not intend to deal with this aspect of his career here except to give two fine examples, the first depicting a mermaid and the moon (Fig.16a) and the second a nude holding some sort of drape (Fig.16b), both produced at the famous glass–works of Murano, their designs dating from about 1925.
On a brief return to Italy in 1915, Stella was deemed unsuitable for military service on account of a limp, and so was able to travel to allied countries to pursue his artistic interests, and to continue to exhibit his work, for example in Rome and Milan. Notably, in 1918 he was in London where, sadly, his only daughter was killed in a road accident. At the end of the First World War, in 1919, he returned to Italy – to Venice and Florence. From this point on, though he continued to produce etchings and exhibit them, he became principally concerned with glass–work and, unexpectedly, the teaching of art – or rather, the reform of it. It is interesting to note that over 90% of his etchings were done in 1920 or earlier, and virtually all his glass–work done after 1920.
Before moving on to a brief summary of his teaching career, it is worth mentioning that in 1919 he exhibited 23 etchings at his old haunt, Ca’Pesaro, but in 1920, after falling out again with that gallery over its refusal to allow some prominent non–Venetian artists to exhibit their work there, he threw in his lot with them, and exhibited in a ‘dissidents’ gallery in Piazza San Marco instead. But by 1924, at the 14th biennial International Art Exhibition in Venice, he seems to have exhibited only glassware, and his exhibits at the International Decorative Art Exhibition in Paris in 1925 (at which the term Art Deco was coined) consisted only of engraved glass and mirrors.
Moving on now to his teaching career, his modernising reforms in art education began in 1922–4 at the Royal Art Institute at Santa Croce in Florence, where he was professor of Book Illustration and Graphic Art. In 1924–7 he was at the Institute of Applied Arts at Ortisei, where he was Artistic Director. In 1927–9, following a fall–out with the Institute authorities at Ortisei, he moved to the Pietro Selvatico Institute in Padua; and then, as a result of his successes there, in 1929 he was appointed to the University of Decorative Arts in Monza, where he remained until 1935, when he resigned. (At Monza he apparently ‘removed’ all the resident traditionalist teaching staff and replaced them with a raft of new staff more in tune with contemporary movements in painting, architecture, sculpture and ceramics!) Stella then took a break, and spent much of 1935 in Soriso, as mentioned above. After that, in 1936, he took up the post as director of the State Institute of Art in Venice, a post he held until his death in Asolo on 21 August 1941.
At some stage during his teaching career in Florence one of his students, Aldo Salvadori, said of him that he was very tall (about 6 feet 3 inches), with an intelligent face, blue eyes, and long wavy hair; that he was cultured and refined, a brilliant conversationalist with a fondness for good food and beautiful women; that he was combative and unconventional in everything, finding the most hot–headed young art student more interesting than a stuffy old traditionalist; and that, thanks to his extensive travels, not to mention a Swedish wife, he was fluent in five languages.
Stella’s most productive and interesting work in this field was done in between about 1909 and 1913. Though one cannot be sure how much of a design was suggested by the person who commissioned it and how much came from Stella himself, many continue the symbolist themes of his other etchings. Readers will readily notice the recurrence of various symbols, though without knowing the interests or professions of the people for whom the bookplates were designed, it is not always possible to decipher fully what is going on, nor the significance of the mottoes on some of them.
Death features in a couple of bookplates, as in Fig.17a dating from 1911, and Fig.17b, dating from 1913. The former is curious, for the naked man is stood on a cliff–top, with Death – or at least, a skeleton – suspended in mid–air over the edge of it, enclosed in a sort of transparent tube, apparently in fear of the man. The latter bears the motto “Labor Omnia Vincit” (work conquers all), the nude with the star on her forehead presumably representing Work in the act of pushing away even Death, as indeed the man in Fig.17a seems to be doing.
Nudes feature prominently, in a variety of interesting settings – in addition to Fig.17b, for example, we have Fig.18a, dating from 1909 – note the medusa–like head, the thorn bush and the eagle – these symbols all feature elsewhere in Stella’s work, Medusa in Fig.14a, for example; Fig.18b, dating from 1910 – note the hour glass (is that one in Fig.1b ?) and the model building (cf Fig.12b); and Fig.18c, dating from 1910 – note the Sphinx and the Stork / Pelican (neither of any readily discernible symbolism here), with the well–known dictum of Descartes, “Cogito Ergo Sum” (I think therefore I am) – Hugo von Habermann was Stella’s teacher in Munich, remember.
A miscellany now – Fig.19a, dated 1909, is a rather sinister example featuring a satyr and bat in a surround of vine leaves and grapes, seemingly done for his step–father; Fig.19b, dated 1910, bearing the motto “De Minimis Non Curat Praetor” (The Praetor, or chief magistrate, does not care about the smallest matters) hence, I would guess, the superior eagle (cf. Fig.18a) looking askance at four squawking crows; Fig.19c, dated 1910, is a curious example featuring a topless girl–spider at the centre of her web, which seems to be strung about a bunch of (tiger ?) lilies. It bears the motto “Nulla Dies Sine Linea” (No day without a line – it comes from Pliny’s Natural History Book 35, Section 84, in reference to the Greek artist Apelles, who could not go a single day without creating something), though what this has to do with the illustration is far from clear! Fig.19d, dated 1911, shows a gynaecologist (?) examining a foetus through a magnifying glass, a quill pen over his ear at the ends of which are two naked women who seem to be either phoning each other, or, more likely, the doctor himself. Finally, Fig.19e, dated 1913, is yet another oddity with a dinosaur atop a pile of books, with a sword (or blade for separating pages) inserted into one of them, and with a seal and a bunch of keys in the foreground. (Stella seems to have had a fascination for dinosaurs and lizards. His etching of a Brontosaurus–like sea monster of 1915 is another example.)
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
But it seems only fitting to conclude with the bookplates which Stella did for himself, first under his real name of “G.M. Stella” (Fig.20a) and second under his anagrammatic pseudonym, mentioned earlier, “Sigurd Mateo Laila” (Fig.20b).
Fig.20a, dated 1909, features an etcher’s bottle of nitric acid (bearing the above–encountered motto “Nulla Die (sic) Sine Linea”), with a naked girl, wearing a fashionable plumed hat and seemingly examining an etching, emerging from a funnel in its neck. Another naked girl is emerging from fumes / vapours in the background. In the foreground two satyrs attend what seems to be a mother holding two babies. The mother is seated on the rim of a dish of acid (?), both she and one of the satyrs (holding a quill pen ?) with their feet immersed in it. There seems to be a large spider at the bottom right, which may explain the ‘dancing’ satyr. (The satyr was another of Stella’s favourite symbols, featuring in Fig.19a, for example. He also did an unusual Ex Musicis plate depicting a satyr playing the panpipes to a group of naked nymphs, dated 1910.)
Fig.20b, dated 1912, shows a mask from which hang the strings of two puppets, a knight and a lady, standing upon two books. The mask presumably represents his pseudonym, but it is not clear what the medieval puppets represent.
Make of those what you will. As regards the medieval figures, though, it is interesting that in 1909 Stella did an ex libris plate for his wife, shown here as Fig.20c. It shows a mounted nobleman or knight offering half his cloak to a naked woman. The banner bears the words “Non Nobis” meaning “Not Us.” The image perhaps derives from the iconography of St. Martin of Tours, who is said to have given half his cloak to a freezing beggar.
Note 1: Fig.8a is copied from the well–known portrait in chalk of EBB done by artist Field Talfourd in Rome in March 1859, the original now in the National Portrait Gallery in London, to which it was donated in 1871. Talfourd also did, at the same time, a portrait of her husband, Robert Browning, now also in the National Portrait Gallery. Fig.8b is an accurate representation of EBB’s tomb in the English Cemetery in Florence, though Stella has ‘airbrushed out’, as it were, the gravestones of some of the other ‘residents’ that surround it. At the front of the book is a Note explaining the origin of the sonnets, signed “R.B.B. Palazzo Rezzonico, Sept.1. 1905.” R.B.B. was Robert Barrett Browning, nicknamed Pen, the son of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who lived in the Palazzo Rezzonico, the house where his father had died in December 1889.
Note 2: Symonds’s translation was first published in London in 1878, with a second edition appearing in 1904. The sonnets of Michelangelo have been the subject of much controversy on account of what some see as their homoerotic content – Symonds himself was bisexual and what we would now call a champion of gay rights, so he was all in favour of emphasising this. It is certainly true that Michelangelo had a penchant for the naked male, and that he expressed his love for the handsome young man Tommaso de’ Cavalieri in two sonnets (XXX & XXXI – neither illustrated by Stella). But then sonnet XX (Fig.10d) expresses appreciation for female beauty, and he wrote three sonnets expressing his love for the admittedly older woman Vittoria Colonna (XII, XIII & XIV), and four lamenting her death (LXI, LXII, LXIII & LXIV (Fig.10f)). In fact, it seems likely that Michelangelo led a celibate life, and that his loving relationships with both men and women remained platonic. I am reminded of FitzGerald, with his intense loves for the young man William Kenworthy Browne and for Elizabeth Charlesworth (who went on to marry FitzGerald’s mentor in Persian, Edward Byles Cowell.) On Michelangelo’s life–long celibacy see Anthony Hughes, Michelangelo (1997) p.17; for his relationship with Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and other young men (as well as poetry addressed to an imaginary mistress!) see ib. p.231–8; for his relationship with Vittoria Colonna see ib.p.257–263.
Note 3: In English, there is a good Wikipedia page about Stella, though some details are inaccurate or uncertain: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Balsamo_Stella), and there is some online information about him on auction house sites relating to sales of his art–work and glassware. But the most detailed information about him and his work is in Italian, a most useful source being Guido Balsamo Stella 1882–1941, effectively the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Palazzo Agostinelli in Bassano del Grappa from 24 October 1987 to 31 January 1988. It contains 121 illustrations of his art–work, together with notes on each one, plus a biography of the artist. A section is also devoted to his glassware, though we are not much concerned with that here. Also of interest is Guido Balsamo Stella – Opera Grafica e Vetraria published by Galleria Philppe Daverio, Milan, 1977. It lists 155 pieces of art–work, but only illustrates 47 of them (usefully, some not included in the Palazzo Agostinelli catalogue). It too features a biography of the artist and a section on his glassware. It is to be noted that titles, and occasionally dates, of some of the etchings differ in these two sources – for example, Fig.15e, is titled “Ritratto di signore seduto in una poltrona a dondolo” (Portrait of a Gentleman sitting in a Rocking Chair) and dated 1916 in the Palazzo Agostinelli catalogue, but “Bildnis eines Grundbesitzers” (Portrait of a Landowner) and dated 1917 in the Daverio catalogue. But rather than bog this essay down with such details I have steered with a best guess middle course. Incidentally, neither the Agostinelli nor the Daverio catalogue mentions Stella’s illustrations done for the publisher S. Rosen, presumably because the originals were not in the public or private collections included in their respective catalogues. What became of the originals is unknown.
Note 4a: Neither of these is listed in the Palazzo Agostinelli catalogue, but both are listed in the Daverio catalogue as nos.142 & 143 on p.44, and both dated 1921. Daverio only illustrates the former, however.
Note 4b: Fig.15g, bearing the title “The Flood”, is taken from a 2018 auction record, where it is titled “Diluvio 1” (suggesting is the first of several versions) and dated to 1925 on unclear grounds. Though the Palazzo Agostinelli catalogue does not list it or illustrate it, it does mention (p.80) an etching titled Diluvio as being exhibited in Venice in 1936.
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