St. Augustine's Church, Wrangthorn

Architect James Barlow Fraser designed the church whose foundation stone was laid in 1869 using the Gothic revival style. It was completed in 1871.

Postcard from 1871

John Fraser commenced the alabaster reredos as a memorial to his wife, but upon his death, it was finished by his children. The center panel consists of a Venetian mosaic of The Last Supper by Salviati, Burke and Co. while figures feeding the poor and healing the sick flank each respective side. The reredos was completed in 1882.

Interior in 1927.

Sources:
"New Buildings and Restorations."  The Architect. December 18, 1869. 304.
"Miscellanea." Reredos, St. Augustine's Church, Wrangthorne, Leeds. The Builder. June 10, 1882. 723.
leodis. A Photographic Archive of Leeds.
Church of St. Augustine at Wrangthorn, Leeds. British Listed Buildings.
"Wrangthorn: St. Augustine of Hippo." A Church Near You.

Hove Town Hall

Built 1880-82 after plans by Alfred Waterhouse, the new Gothic style town hall in Hove was opened in mid-December 1882. It was a two story, red brick building with additional dormers under the steeply pitched roof.

The exterior focal point of the building was the 120 ft tall by 19 ft wide clock tower located in the center of the main front facing Church Road. Salviati and Burke made the mosaics for the tower's four clock faces, which measured seven feet in diameter each.

A fire destroyed much of the building in 1966, and it was subsequently replaced with a more modern town hall.

Sources:
"Hove Town Hall." Hove, Portslade and Brighton in the Past.
Drury, Jennifer. "Hove Town Hall." My Brighton and Hove.
Bell, John. "Morning after the 1966 fire." My Brighton and Hove.
"Tenders and Contracts." The Furniture Gazette. Jan 6, 1883. 13.
"Building Intelligence." The Building News and Engineering Journal. Dec 22, 1882. 794.
Trimingham, Adam. "An Historic Hall." The Argus. July 16, 2012.

In Detail: Conservation Work on the Royal Garrison Church Woolwich

The restoration of the circa 1890 Salviati mosaics in the Royal Garrison Church is entering its final phase, as conservators with Skillington Ltd. spend the next few weeks on site to finish reinstalling the remaining pieces.

Funded by the Heritage of London Trust and working under the supervision of the English Heritage, the conservation work was necessary due to the poor state of the mosaics resulting from decades of exposure to environmental conditions after the bombing of the church in 1944.

Most of the conservation was carried out in situ, including stabilization of mortars and loose tesserae, disinfection and cleaning. In the decorative border around St George, there was also the replacement of old repairs with new tesserae in the same tone.

Another company had previously removed some of the mosaics, and these were restored at Skillington Ltd.'s workshop. Those conserved pieces are now being installed, which would complete the mosaic restoration project.

Sources: 
The photographs and information about the conservation work have been kindly provided by Kalypso Kampani of Decorative Arts Conservation and Restoration. Ms. Kampani wrote the original proposal for the restoration grant and is the head conservator on the project.

The Second Birmingham Central Library (1879-1973)

Birmingham's first Central Library and Art Gallery opened in 1865, but most of the building burned down in a fire in early January 1879. Rebuilding started almost immediately, using the remaining shell and pillars of the original library.

Opening of the first Birmingham Central Library, 1865

Remnants of the first Birmingham Central Library after the fire of 1879

The new Central Reference and Lending Libraries were designed by the architects William Martin and John Henry Chamberlain and opened in 1882. Salviati and Burke provided mosaic work for parts of the building.

Completely new, the Italianate red brick portion facing Edmund Street housed the Shakespeare Library designed by Chamberlain. The floral frieze above the second-story windows and the geometric patterns inside medallions above the first-story windows were made of mosaics.

 Facade of the Shakespeare Library

Due to both a lack of space (the building was designed for 30,000 books and by the 1970s stored 750,000) and a need for new road construction, the second Birmingham Central Library was demolished in 1973. Construction had started on its successor in 1970, which opened in January 1974 and still stands today.

The interior of the Shakespeare Memorial Library is the only part of the second library which survived. It was dismantled and then reassembled within the new building.

The Shakespeare Memorial Library today

Sources:
"The Birmingham Free Library." The Building News and Engineering Journal. Vol 42. June 2, 1882. 664.
"Birmingham Central Library (1879-1973)." Birmingham City Council.
Birmingham Forum

St. Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace

This Gothic style church by Thomas Cundy was consecrated in 1847. The architect's son Thomas Cundy II finished the spire in 1864. E.B. Ferrey also added a new chancel in 1878.

The Venice and Murano Mosaic Company made the six mosaic panels for the pulpit around 1879. They depict the Four Evangelists flanking Sts. Peter and Paul.

Sources:
The Builder. July 26, 1879. 842.
Speel, Bob. St. Mark's Hamilton Terrace - A Church with Mosaics. 
"Church of St. Mark, Hamilton Terrace". English Heritage.
Images of England: Church of St. Mark Hamilton Terrace. English Heritage.

Grand Hotel, Trafalgar Square

London's Grand Hotel was designed by F & H Francis and James Ebenezer Saunders. This team also designed London's Metropole Hotel in 1883.

Salviati decorated the six-story, Italianate hotel, which opened in Trafalgar Square in 1880 with mosaic work.

Circa 1910

The original building was taken over by the British government in World War I to house military officers.  By 1972, not only had the stone facade weathered, but the whole building was damaged by the new Jubilee subway line. It was demolished in 1986 and replaced with the similarly styled Grand Buildings (housing the current Grand Hotel) designed by Sidell Gibson Partnership.

Sources:
"Earthenware and Porcelain: No. VIII Mosaic Work and Stone-ware." The Furniture Gazette. July 10, 1880. 18.
Antique Print of the Opening of the Grand Hotel. Amazon.
Vintage Everyday. July 4, 2014. 
Exhibition of the Royal Academy. 1878. 44.
Royal Institute of British Architects. Riba1680 Grand Hotel, Charing Cross, London. 1879.
Calder, I.C. "Grand Buildings, Trafalgar Square, London WC2." Proceedings of the ICE - Civil Engineering, Volume 97, Issue 3, 01 August 1993, pages 127 –134.
Hotel Metropole, St. Croix Architecture.

Marquess of Westminster Memorial Fountain

The Italian Renaissance-style memorial to Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster stands at the junction of Pimlico Road and Avery Farm Row in London. Grosvenor was a politician and developer who - before his death in 1869 - was an early patron of Chester architect John Douglas.

Erected around 1870, the four faces of the Portland stone and granite drinking fountain are covered by enamel mosaics by Salviati.

 
Salviati also made the mosaic reredos for the Douglas designed St. John's Church in Aldford, tying it back to Grosvenor through that additional connection.

Sources:
Introduction to Victorian and Edwardian Architectural Mosaics in London
"Drinking Fountain - geograph.org.uk - 1305384" by PAUL FARMER. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
"Fountain on East Side of Junction with Avery Farm Row". National Heritage List for England. English Heritage.
"Richard Grosvenor." Wikipedia.

St. John the Baptist, Aldford

Designed by architect John Douglas, this church was built in 1865-66 at the expense of Richard Grosvenor, the 2nd Marquess of Westminster.

The church's reredos contains five mosaic panels by Salviati. Morris and Co. made the stained glass in the East window after a design by Edward Burne-Jones.

Sources:
English Heritage, "Church of St John the Baptist, Aldford (1135984)", National Heritage List for England
St. John the Baptist, Aldford. Wikipedia. 
A Church Near You. 
British Listed Buildings.

St. Peter's Church, Chetnole

This church dates back to the Thirteenth Century. Slater and Carpenter refurbished the building between 1860 and 1865, including rebuilding the chancel.

Salviati inlaid the alabaster reredos with mosaic during this time.

Sources:
Three Valleys Team
British Listed Buildings
Dorset OPC Project

Morosini mosaic in Talygarn House

A fifty square foot mosaic was created by Salviati for the 1881 Italian Exposition in Milan based on an original 1879 design by artist Giacomo Favretto. It's called "Venice Presenting the Baton of Command to Francesco Morosini".

Morosini was a 17th century Venetian soldier and sailor. The composition includes Morosini himself, Venetia as a beautiful woman, Kleio the muse of history, and St. Mark's lion. More than 7,000 color variations in tesserae were used with the noticeable exception of Salviati's signature gold.


In 1885, George Thomas Clark - a friend of Sir Austen Henry Layard - purchased the mosaic from the Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company for 250 British Pounds and had it installed in the Hall of Talygarn House in Wales. Incidentally, Clark also gifted a mosaic reredos of the Last Supper by Salviati to the Charterhouse School in Godalming.

The mosaic - seen above in Talygarn House - was removed in the 1920s when the house became a convalescent home for miners. At one point, it had been left in a field on the property and as of 2008, there was the intent to donate it to the National Museum of Wales.

 Favretto's 1879 painting can be found in Venice's Museo d'Arte Moderna, ca'Pesaro.

Sources:
Barr, Sheldon. Venetian Glass Mosaics: 1860-1917. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. 60-63.
ebay
Plant, Margaret. Venice: Fragile City 1797-1997. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 175.

St. Andrew's Moreton on Lugg

This Medieval church was reconstructed in 1867 by W.H. Knight of Cheltenham.

Salviati added the chancel wall mosaics of the "Heavenly Jerusalem" in 1887 after a commission by Harriet Evans, widow of Thomas Evans, owner of the nearby Morton Court.

Sources:
British Listed Buildings
Wikimedia Commons from Philip Halling
Pevsner, Nikolaus. Buildings of England: herefordshire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. 256.
National Churches Trust
Duncumb, John et al. Collections Towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford. Vol 3. London: John Murray, 1882. 145.
Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire (1895). 143.

Cast Court, South Kensington Museum

Two architectural courts were designed by General Henry Scott in 1870 for the museum to house both cast reproductions of architectural elements, as well as some original pieces. The space opened in 1873. Salviati and Company made two mosaic reproductions that originally hung on the walls of the south-east Court.

The Good Shepherd is a copy of the lunette above the entrance of the Chapel of Galla Placida in Ravenna Italy originally from the 5th century.

The Salviati mosaic lunette on top right in the Weston Cast Court, 2016.

The original mosaic in Ravenna

The mosaic Figure of Christ is a copy from St. Mark's Basilica in Venice from the 13th century. It depicts the Savior giving a benediction (item 8036-1862), acquired by the museum in 1862 for 200BP, but which is now in storage. Salviati made another copy of a St. Mark's mosaic image of Christ for St. Augustine's College in Canterbury.

The museum also bought in 1864 a mosaic medallion of the head of St. John the Evangelist (item 797-1864) from Salviati for 25BP, but it is now also in storage.

Sources:
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Appell, William. Christian Mosaic Pictures: A Catalogue of Reproductions of Christian Mosaics. London: South Kensington Museum, 1877. 17.
Wikimedia Commons
Film London
Metaphor
V& A Search.
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. Vol. 1. London : Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868.

St. George Church, Clyst St. George

The ancient church was rebuilt in 1854-55, but it was gutted by air raid fire in 1940. It was rebuilt again in 1952.

Sometime between September 1862 and October 1863, Salviati decorated the church's western wall with mosaics of angels with widespread wings supporting scrolls of Scripture on the request of the same Reverend Ellacombe who supervised the 1850s restorations. Unfortunately, the mosaics did not seem to have survived the World War II damage.

Sources:
Salviati, Antonio. On Mosaics (generally). Leeds, 1865. 46.
Wikipedia
Cherry, Bridget and Nikolaus Pevsner. Devon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.  271.
Ellacombe, Henry Thomas. The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Clyst St. George Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, September 22, 1862. 70.
Robin Drayton on Geograph
Robert Slack's flickr Photostream

National Museum of Scotland

A mosaic reredos of The Last Supper, as well as a copy of a 9th century mosaic featuring the portrait of a saint were purchased by the museum - known at the time as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art - at the 1873 Vienna Universal Exposition.

The mosaic is almost identical to the one made by Salviati in 1875 for the reredos in St. Andrew's Church, Earl's Colne.


Sources:
Reports on the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873. 3. H.M. Stationery Office, 1874.189.
PeterEdin's flickr Photostream
David Dorren's flickr Photostream
Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.'s flickr Photostream

St. Mary Magdalene Church, Altofts

This church was built by architects Richard Life Adams and John Kelly of Leeds between 1873-90. It was consecrated in 1878, by which time the reredos was also completed.

The Caen stone reredos was carved by Leeds sculptor Canova Throp. The mosaic embellishment was made by Salviati after Pietro Perugino's 15th century fresco in Florence's cloister of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi.

Perugino's "Crucifixion" depicts two additional figures: St. Bernard on the left in white and St. Benedict on the right in blue.

Salviati's interpretation for the mosaic reredos.

The Virgin Mary is on the left panel.

Mary Magdalene is seen praying at Christ's feet.

St. John the Baptist is on the right.

Sources:
Treasures Revealed in Wakefield 2010. 18.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. Yorkshire: The West Riding. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 80.
"New Church of St. Mary Magdalene." The British Architect: A Journal of Architecture. Vol. 10. Nov 1878. 185.
JThomas on Geograph
Museums in Florence
Photographs of the reredos were kindly provided by the Church Warden of St. Mary Magdalene's, Altofts