Victorian Museum's Mosaic Reproduction Project: From Italian Churches to Paper Casts

The Victoria and Albert Museum's Weston Cast Court displays two 1869 mosaic reproductions linked to Henry Cole's 1868 Italian tour. These are 'The Good Shepherd' by Salviati & Co., copied from a 5th-century original in Ravenna's Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and 'The Triumphant Entry of Christ into Jerusalem' by Rosario Riolo, based on a 12th-century work in Palermo's Capella Palatina. Cole and Henry Scott traveled through Italy to document mosaics for a comprehensive educational display at the South Kensington Museum. Their plan initially involved creating material replicas, but only 'The Good Shepherd' was fully executed as a glass mosaic following this process, with a drawing received in January 1869 and the finished piece completed by August. The broader scheme shifted to producing paper casts in the 1870s, created by Caspar Purdon Clarke using a technique similar to brass rubbings and hand-painted. These paper reproductions, displayed in the Museum's North Court, aimed to provide public access to Italian mosaic art. A 1930 exhibition briefly revived these paper casts alongside Byzantine mosaics from Damascus. Today, only one paper cast, 'Ducks and Water Fowl' from Rome's Santa Maria in Trastevere, remains in the V&A's collection, highlighting a little-known Victorian reproduction method.